THE  LIBRARY 

OF 
THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 
LOS  ANGELES 


THE 
WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

FROM  THE  FRENCH  OF 
PIERRE    DE    COULEVAIN 

Author  of  "  On  the  Branch,"   "  The  Heart  of  Life," 
"The  Unknown  Isle,"  etc. 

BY 
ALYS    HALLARD 


NEW  YORK 
DODD,  MEAD  AND   COMPANY 

1914 


1914 

By  DODD,  MEAD  &  COMPANY 


College 

Library 


TO  AMERICA 

COUNTRY   OF  NEW  THOUGHTS 
PIERRE  DK  COULEVAIN 


PREFACE 

The  Wonderful  Romance!  It  certainly  is  not  mine. 
It  is  not  even  one  of  those  that  the  human  brain  pro- 
duces. It  is  the  romance  which  the  divine  Powers  are 
elaborating  in  the  depths  of  the  Infinite.  It  is  that 
romance  which  we  are  all  living,  from  morning  to  night 
and  from  night  to  morning;  the  one  in  which  we  are  the 
heroes  and  the  martyrs.  It  is  the  romance  of  this  Earth 
of  ours. 

My  latest  volume  was  only  just  finished,  when  the 
literary  cells  of  my  brain  set  to  work  once  more.  They 
took  up,  for  the  fourth  time,  a  novel  planned  out  after 
the  birth  of  Eve  Triumphant.  The  individuals,  manu- 
factured with  features  and  impressions  stored  up  in  my 
brain  in  the  most  mysterious  way,  appeared  once  more 
upon  the  screen.  There  was  a  woman's  face,  a  beauti- 
ful, young  face  of  which  I  had  once  caught  a  glimpse, 
with  a  ray  of  sunshine  falling  on  it.  Then  there  was 
the  face  of  a  man  of  the  world,  one  of  the  last  scions  of 
an  old  race,  a  man  of  some  45  years  of  age.  He  was 
dark,  his  hair  was  just  turning  grey,  the  pupils  of  his 
eyes  were  very  light,  he  was  clean  shaven  and  his  mouth 
had  an  ironical,  bad  expression,  the  expression  of  a  con- 
queror who  knows  all  the  bitterness  of  victory.  There 
was  the  face,  too,  of  a  working-man,  with  the  savage  ex- 
pression of  Holbein's  Christ  and  then  the  face  of  a  girl 
of  sorrows. 


ii  PREFACE 

All  these  outlines  became  so  vivid  and  life-like  that  it 
seemed  as  though  they  must  actually  take  form.  I 
found  harmonious  names  for  them.  I  made  them  act 
scenes  which  either  amused  me  or  moved  me  to  pity. 
This  creative  work,  which  is  God's  work,  gave  me  in- 
tense pleasure  and,  for  several  months,  I  simply  revelled 
in  it.  I  then  began  to  feel  disgusted  with  all  these 
imaginary  stories  which  only  depicted  the  struggle  of 
love. 

I  had  commenced  reading  the  Wonderful  Romance 
whilst  searching  for  The  Heart  of  Life,  and  this  had 
roused  in  me  a  curiosity  which  wanted  to  be  satisfied. 
It  had  given  me  an  absolute  need  of  truth  and  of  reality. 
Reality  is  a  fruit  which  Humanity  has  not  yet  succeeded 
in  opening.  Its  shell  is  hard,  its  pulp  bitter,  but  each 
of  its  vermillion  seeds  contains  a  mystery,  a  surprise,  a 
germ,  a  divine  spark.  I  have  caught  a  glimpse  of  the 
beautiful  shade  of  its  paradises,  of  the  rays  of  hope  which 
light  up  its  purgatories  and  of  the  gleams  of  dawn  which 
brighten  its  hells.  Its  depths  and  its  mysteries  attract 
me  irresistibly.  The  splendour  of  its  brilliant  light 
chased  away  my  poor  little  ideal  figures.  They  will 
appear  again  some  day,  I  have  no  doubt.  They  will 
never  die,  for  they  are  Thought.  I  shall  take  them 
away  with  me  to  the  Beyond  and  Xature  will  perhaps  do 
something  with  them. 

Now  that  my  vision  has  become  more  objective,  I 
want  to  have  one  last  look  at  Life.  There  is  something 
both  pathetic  and  droll  in  the  idea  of  a  human  creature 
coming  out  of  himself  and  lifting  himself  up  from  earth, 
as  it  were,  in  order  to  contemplate  the  divine  work, 


PREFACE  iii 

thus  becoming  a  spectator  of  the  piece  in  which  he  is 
playing  a  very  small  part ! 

I  have  been  blamed  for  having  put  my  own  person- 
ality too  frequently  on  the  scene.  I  have  done  this  un- 
consciously hitherto,  but  I  shall  now  do  it  consciously, 
whenever  it  seems  necessary  and,  what  is  still  more,  I 
shall  not  make  any  excuses  for  this,  as  my  illustrious 
predecessors  have  done.  In  the  first  place,  a  sense  of 
dignity  would  prevent  me,  and  then  my  horror  of  all 
that  is  false  and  conventional.  It  was  a  poor  sort  of 
psychologist  who  said  that :  "  No  man  is  great  in  the 
eyes  of  his  valet."  It  seems  to  me,  on  the  contrary,  that 
no  man  is  great,  except  to  his  valet.  The  valet  of  a 
Pope  or  of  a  King  thinks  himself  very  superior  to  his 
colleagues  who  only  have  ordinary  mortals  for  masters, 
and  he  will  put  on  grand  airs  for  the  simplest  services 
that  he  has  to  render  to  His  Holiness,  or  to  His  Majesty. 
I  have  not  seen  this  myself,  of  course,  but  I  am  sure 
of  it,  on  account  of  the  curious  aberration  which  causes 
illusion.  It  is  possible,  then,  to  be  great  in  the  eyes 
of  one's  valet,  but  to  be  great  in  one's  own  eyes  is  more 
difficult,  and  to  the  thinker  it  is  impossible.  Writers 
and  men  of  science  know  all  the  efforts  and  gropings 
that  their  master-pieces  represent.  The  very  saints 
must  have  known  the  seamy  side  of  their  own  sanctity, 
and  every  individual  is  more  or  less  conscious,  at  certain 
moments,  of  his  own  inferiority.  I  have  had  my  share 
of  vanity.  I  can  never  have  any  more,  though,  now, 
and  God  alone  knows  how  much  I  regret  this !  Thanks 
to  my  age,  I  now  find  myself  on  the  boundary  line  of 
two  worlds.  My  impressions  on  leaving  the  one  world 


iv  PREFACE 

and  my  intuitions  with  regard  to  the  Beyond  may, 
thanks  to  their  absolute  sincerity,  have  some  scientific 
value.  I  shall  therefore  give  them  without  any  scruple. 
Wrongly  or  rightly,  I  firmly  believe  that  I  have  been 
gradually  prepared  from  a  long  time  back,  for  the  read- 
ing of  the  Wonderful  Romance.  I  even  believe  that  I 
was  created  solely  for  this,  and,  if  it  be  a  privilege,  I 
have  certainly  paid  dearly  for  it. 

Up  to  the  present,  I  have  only  hovered  round  the 
great  questions  of  life.  This  time  I  intend  to  attack 
them  frankly.  I  do  not  pretend  to  be  able  to  solve  one 
single  question,  but  I  feel  that  I  can  examine  many  in 
all  justice,  and  with  an  open  mind,  and  that  is  some- 
thing. 

Only  those  readers  who  have  been  brought  into  the 
same  current  of  thought  will  understand  me.  It  will 
only  be  a  small  number,  I  fancy,  but  that  does  not 
matter.  Evolution  will  make  majorities  of  certain 
minorities,  and  there  are  majorities  that  are  destined 
to  become  minorities.  Such  majorities  do  not  count. 

And  so  I  am  compelled  to  go  on  a  fresh  cruise  to  the 
Heart  of  Life.  How  long  will  it  last?  Perhaps  one 
year,  perhaps  two  years.  Where  will  it  take  me  and 
how  shall  I  be  helped?  I  am  curious  to  know  all  this. 
I  wonder  whether  my  motor  contains  sufficient  spirit  for 
a  fresh  flight.  I  do  not  know  and  I  shall  not  trouble 
about  that.  If  the  flight  should  be  necessary,  I  shall 
accomplish  it,  as  1  am  no  longer  -working  for  myself. 

When  Dr.  Charcot  set  out  for  the  South  Pole,  he 
called  his  boat  The  Why  Not?  I  shall  call  my  little 
barque  The  Why.  My  icebergs  will  be  formidable  ac- 


PREFACE  v 

cumulations  of  childish  beliefs,  prejudices  and  wrong 
ideas.  I  shall  not  attempt  to  destroy  them,  as  they, 
too,  are  things  of  beauty,  but  I  shall  endeavour  to  make 
a  passage  for  myself  right  through  them,  a  passage 
which  will  take  me  to  the  open  sea.  At  present  they 
block  the  way  to  this.  I  am  setting  out  with  scanty 
provisions,  but  not  without  a  compass.  Let  those  who 
care  for  me  come  with  me!  If,  during  this  cruise  in 
search  of  the  truth,  I  am  not  able  to  interest  them,  to 
touch  their  hearts,  to  bring  to  their  eyes  pleasant  tears, 
to  provoke  their  gaiety,  and  tickle  their  sense  of  hu- 
mour, if  I  do  not  succeed  in  turning  their  thoughts  and 
their  adoration  towards  the  Author  of  the  divine  manu- 
script, they  have  only  to  leave  me.  It  is  quite  simple! 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 


THE 
WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

CHAPTER  I 

Sache  done  cette  triste  et  rassurante  chose 
Que  nul,  Coq  du  matin  ou  Rtssignol  du  toir, 
N'a  tout  a  fait  10  chant  qu'il  rdverait  d'avoir. 

EDMOND  ROSTAND. 

LAUSANNE. 

SOME  twenty  years  ago,  when  driving  through  a  little 
English  town  one  Sunday,  I  saw  a  crowd  of  people 
gathered  round  a  kind  of  easel,  on  which  was  placed  a 
sheet  of  cardboard  with  a  charcoal  drawing  of  a  huge 
eye.  Underneath  was  written :  "  Thy  eye  must  be 
born  again."  One  of  those  dissenting  ministers,  who 
look  like  big,  half-starved  birds,  was  explaining  the 
words  of  the  Evangel.  Thanks  to  his  voice,  there  was 
a  church-like  silence  in  the  street,  which  was  disturbed 
for  a  few  seconds  by  the  wheels  of  my  carriage.  To  a 
foreigner,  the  scene  was  both  curious  and  comic.  On 
arriving  at  the  house  of  my  friends,  I  did  not  fail  to 
tell  them  about  it,  and  I  joked  them  in  a  pitiless  way, 
and  very  tactlessly,  on  their  religious  excentricities. 
At  present,  I  am  rather  inclined  to  believe  that  this  naif 
drawing  was  placed  there  for  me  too.  It  photographed 
itself  on  my  mind  and  it  has,  perhaps,  been  doing  an 


occult  work  there  which  has  helped  in  the  preparation 
of  this  volume.  Yes,  our  eye  must  be  born  again  and, 
after  being  subjective,  it  must  become  objective.  This 
new  birth,  for  which  philosophy  and  science  are  work- 
ing unawares,  marks  the  moment  when  humanity  leaves 
its  childhood  behind  it.  The  miracle,  illustrated  by  the 
huge  charcoal  eye,  has  been  accomplished,  as  far  as  I 
am  concerned.  During  three  quarters  of  my  exist- 
ence, I  was  both  blind  and  deaf,  like  the  majority  of 
human  beings,  but  I  was  never  dumb.  I  looked  without 
seeing,  and  I  heard  without  understanding.  I  was 
born  without  what  is  known  as  faith.  The  legend  of 
the  Garden  of  Eden,  which  was  told  to  me,  as  it  is  to 
all  the  fresh  comers  in  this  world,  was  only  one  more 
fairy-story  to  add  to  those  with  which  my  brain  was 
already  crammed.  I  vouch  for  the  truth  of  this  first 
impression  of  mine.  Later  on,  the  catechism  roused 
the  most  curious  and  sincere  incredulity  in  me.  It  was 
the  dogma  of  hell  that  made  me  distrustful.  I  refused 
to  believe  that  God,  who  told  men  to  forgive  times  with- 
out number,  could,  Himself,  doom  them  to  eternal  suffer- 
ing. That  seemed  to  me  most  unlikely.  The  fact  that 
humanity  had  been  kept  waiting  so  long,  four  thousand 
years,  for  its  redemption,  caused  my  common  sense  and 
my  instinct  of  justice  to  rebel. 

'*  You  must  be  mistaken,  all  of  you,"  I  began  to  say ; 
"  things  were  never  arranged  like  that."  This  remark, 
which  I  was  constantly  repeating,  was  the  despair  of 
my  very  religious  mother.  I  kept  repeating  it,  with 
sincere  conviction,  but  also  in  wicked  delight,  because 
I  saw  that  it  took  effect.  I  regret  my  childish  perver- 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  3 

sity  now  and  am  ashamed  of  it.  At  the  age  of  twelve, 
between  two  mad  games  of  rounders,  I  used  to  wonder 
how  things  had  really  come  about?  I  wanted  to  find 
out  from  a  spirit  of  pure  wilfulness,  hoping  to  confound 
the  "  grown-ups  "  with  my  arguments,  as  I  had  a  secret 
aversion  for  the  "  grown-ups."  I  did  not  really,  at 
heart,  care  about  the  truth  or  the  justice  of  things,  and 
yet  I  have  been  in  search  of  them  all  my  life,  probably 
in  obedience  to  that  force  which  I  call  "  the  other  one." 
I  have  been  in  search  of  them  —  and  it  is  they  who 
have  found  me,  conquered  me  and  made  of  me  their 
servant.  When  I  first  came  into  contact  with  suffer- 
ing, with  moral  ugliness,  all  the  "  Whys  and  Where- 
fores "  that  have  ever  come  to  the  lips  of  humanity 
came  to  mine  —  and  nothing  answered  me,  or  at  any 
rate,  I  could  not  hear  or  understand  anything.  I  was 
holding  the  Wonderful  Romance  upside  down;  it  was 
turned  towards  me  on  the  subjective  side,  and  I  could 
not  make  it  out.  I  saw  Life  in  myself  alone,  accord- 
ing to  my  own  state  of  mind  and  even  of  body.  I 
thought  it  very  fine,  and  even  splendid,  when  I  was 
happy,  but  abominable  when  everything  was  not  going 
according  to  my  wishes.  If  I  were  disappointed,  I  con- 
sidered that  all  humanity  was  vile  and  unworthy.  My 
unyieldingness  and  my  intolerance,  towards  those  who 
did  not  think  as  I  did,  were  simply  ridiculous.  I  saw 
Life  as  it  appears  through  legends,  old  women's  tales, 
dogmas,  prejudices  and  conventionalities.  My  vision 
was  bounded  on  the  north,  south,  east  and  west  by  my 
own  infinitesimal  personality  and  it  did  not  allow  me  to 
be  just  either  towards  Providence,  or  towards  my  fel- 


4  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

low-creatures.  Giordano  Bruno,  the  philosopher  of 
Nola,  said :  "  Religion  is  the  shadow  of  truth,  but  it 
is  not  contrary  to  truth."  That  was  a  wonderful  in- 
luition  of  his.  This  shadow  of  truth,  which  had  re- 
mained with  me,  troubled  me.  God,  made  man  (made 
man,  in  reality,  by  Christianism),  had  never  inspired 
me  with  love  or  with  awe,  but  my  soul  had  retained  the 
hereditary  impress  of  that  symbolical  conception  which 
has  made  so  many  atheists.  This  did  not  prevent  me 
from  seeing  and  feeling  the  Eternal  God,  the  living  God, 
the  God  whom  Leonardo  da  Vinci  called  "  nostro  primo 
motore"  our  first  motive  power.  Nature  seemed  to  me 
to  be  outside  of  myself,  it  seemed  to  me  even  to  be  some- 
thing hostile.  I  was  like  a  poor  bee,  shut  up  under  a 
glass  shade,  which  rushes  towards  the  blue  sky,  buzzing 
in  despair,  and  hurts  itself  against  the  transparent  wall. 
The  day  came  when  I  found  the  way  out,  toward  the 
Infinite,  opened  for  me.  In  every  conversion,  there  is 
always  a  never-to-be-forgotten  moment,  the  one  when 
the  points  are  changed  and  Providence  puts  us  on  to 
a  new  line.  The  points  were  changed  for  me  and  I  am 
going  to  tell  how  this  happened.  The  story  is  rather 
long,  perhaps,  but  this  accumulation  of  incidents  will 
show  the  profoundness  of  the  Divine  work  and  will  give 
an  example  of  the  thousands  and  thousands  of  episodes 
which  go  to  compose  the  Wonderful  Romance. 

Some  fifteen  or  sixteen  years  ago,  when  staying  at 

Cannes,  I  made  the  acquaintance  of  Baroness  d'O , 

the  widow  of  a  Russian  who  had  held  an  important  post 
under  government.  She  was  about  thirty  years  of  age, 
with  that  original,  Slavonic  kind  of  ugliness,  which  is 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  5 

often  more  fascinating  than  beauty.  She  was  extremely 
slender  and  supple,  and  was  very  distinguished  looking  in 
her  long  black  dresses,  trimmed  with  crape.  From  the 
very  first,  her  little  green-blue  eyes  sought  mine,  and 
before  very  long  she  spoke  to  me.  She  had  a  little  suite 
of  rooms  on  the  ground-floor  and  her  drawing-room 
opened  on  to  a  flower-garden.  She  invited  me  to  call  on 
her  and  I  went.  She  gave  me  tea,  such  as  I  have  never 
tasted  before  or  since.  It  was  of  the  kind  which  is 
rarely  to  be  procured  outside  China.  A  mandarin  had 
given  it  to  her  husband.  It  was  the  colour  of  amber 
and  had  the  scent  of  orchids.  Its  action  on  the  brain 
was  as  exhilarating  as  champagne.  When  the  Baroness 
saw  that  I  appreciated  it  like  a  true  connoisseur,  she 
frequently  invited  me  to  tea  with  her.  We  had  some 
very  pleasant  chats  around  the  hospitable  samovar  and 
before  long  my  hostess  became  confidential. 

Madame  d'O belonged  to  an  aristocratic,  but 

poor,  family.  She  had  married  a  husband  much  older 
than  herself.  He  was  really  quite  old,  but  he  had  in- 
spired her  with  very  deep  affection  and  she  worshipped 
his  memory.  She  was  delicate  and  seemed  to  have  very 
little  vitality.  She  would  spend  a  great  part  of  her 
day  on  her  sofa,  reading,  dreaming  and  smoking  ciga- 
rettes. All  things  appealing  to  the  heart  or  mind  in- 
terested her  and  she  was  also  an  excellent  musician. 
Her  widow's  pension  allowed  her  the  luxury  of  a  car- 
riage and  she  invited  her  friends,  in  turn,  to  drive  with 
her. 

After  I  had  known  her  for  some  little  time,  I  began 
to  notice  that  she  was  getting  very  nervous  and  that 


6  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

something  seemed  to  be  on  her  mind.  One  afternoon 
I  was  driving  with  her  and,  just  as  we  were  going  along 
between  two  hedges  in  full  blossom,  she  suddenly  said: 

"  Do  you  know  whom  I  am  expecting  this  evening?  " 

"  Not  at  all,"  I  answered,  smiling  at  the  question. 

**  An  adopted  daughter,"  she  said. 

"  Oh,  you  are  not  going  to  be  foolish  enough  to  take 
charge  of  a  child?  "  I  exclaimed,  impulsively. 

"  It  is  almost  an  obligation,  but  I  think  I  shall  like 

this  obligation,"  said  Madame  d'O .  "  About 

eighteen  months  before  my  husband's  death,"  she  con- 
tinued, "  he  was  sent  to  China.  I  went  with  him  and, 
as  we  were  returning  home  again,  there  was  a  terrible 
storm  and  we  were  almost  shipwrecked.  My  husband 
fell  and  broke  his  leg.  The  ship's  doctor  treated  him 
very  skilfully,  and  was  most  devoted.  He  was  well  re- 
munerated, of  course,  but  we  discovered  that  this  Dr. 
Linsky  was  the  son  of  a  poor  Siberian  priest,  that  he 
was  separated  from  his  wife  and  had  two  little  girls. 
My  husband  wanted  to  adopt  one  of  these  children  and 
we  talked  it  over  several  times.  He  died  before  we  had 
taken  any  steps  in  the  matter.  It  remained  for  me  to 
carry  out  his  wishes.  I  wrote  to  Dr.  Linsky,  but  only 
obtained  his  consent  with  great  difficulty.  He  is  to 
bring  me  the  child  this  very  evening." 

"  I  can  quite  understand  your  anxiety  then,"  I  said, 
"  for  it  is  cither  happiness  or  misery  that  is  on  its  way 
to  you." 

"  Yes,  either  happiness  or  misery  coming  by  express 
from  the  heart  of  Siberia.  The  father  and  daughter 
have  been  on  their  way  for  the  last  week.  They  are 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  7 

travelling  third  class,  so  that  I  expect  to  see  them  arrive 
half  dead,  poor  things !  " 

For  the  next  three  days  the  Baroness  did  not  appear 
in  the  dining-room.  On  the  fourth  day  she  came  up  to 
call  on  me  and  I  could  see,  from  her  radiant  face,  that 
she  had  not  been  disappointed.  The  child  had  made 
an  excellent  impression  on  her. 

"  She  is  ten  years  old,"  she  said.  "  I  should  have 
preferred  her  being  younger.  I  had  seen  the  photo- 
graphs of  both  children  and  asked  to  have  the  younger 
one,  but  the  father  had  not  remembered  this  and  he  has 
brought  me  the  elder  one.  I  took  her  on  my  lap  and 
told  her  that  I  was  going  to  be  her  mother  and  she 
replied,  quite  clearly :  *  You  cannot  be  my  mother, 
as  I  have  one.  You  could  be  my  aunt  or  my  friend, 
if  you  like.'  She  spoke  as  though  she  were  conferring 
a  favour  on  me." 

"  Her  reply  must  have  given  you  a  good  opinion  of 
her  character,"  I  said,  by  way  of  consolation. 

"  Yes,  but  I  had  longed  to  be  a  mother,  and  now  I 
must  resign  myself  to  being  an  aunt,"  said  my  visitor, 
with  a  sad  smile.  "  This  is  one  more  disappointment 
in  my  life.  I  have  left  off  counting  them." 

The  following  day  I  made  the  acquaintance  of  little 
Djenia.  She  was  very  tall  for  her  age,  straight  and 
well  built.  I  saw  before  me  a  vigorous  human  plant, 
a  plant  that  had  grown  in  the  open  air  and  in  a  North- 
ern climate.  Her  light  yellow  hair  was  cut  short  and 
this  made  her  look  like  a  boy.  Her  complexion  was 
like  glistening  snow  and  the  expression  of  her  light 
blue  eyes  was  intelligent  and  grave.  Her  dilating  nos- 


8  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

trils  seemed  to  want  plenty  of  air  and  space.  Her 
mouth  indicated  kindliness  and  decision.  I  was  struck 
by  her  perfect  ease.  She  gave  the  impression  of  hav- 
ing taken  complete  possession  of  this  world,  although 
she  had  only  been  in  it  ten  years.  It  certainly  was 
not  an  insignificant  creature  that  had  just  come  into 
the  life  of  the  Baroness. 

Dr.  Linsky  was  introduced  to  me  and  he  looked  to 
me  like  a  veritable  Cossack.  His  regular  and  somewhat 
heavy  features  were  animated  by  grey-blue  eyes,  which 
were  both  dreamy  and  gentle.  He  was  very  tall  and 
seemed  to  fill  the  little  drawing-room.  He  spoke  French 
with  a  certain  difficulty  and  timidity.  After  a  few 
minutes  it  appeared  to  me  as  though  something  were 
taking  place  in  the  ambient  atmosphere.  It  seemed  to 
me  that  I  felt  the  presence  of  the  great  Invisible.  I 
began  to  observe  Djenia's  father  and  my  hostess.  I 
saw  nothing  to  justify  the  magnetic  impression  I  had 
just  had,  but  I  said  to  myself  that  it  was  quite  possible 
that  this  strength  and  this  weakness  should  be  irresist- 
ibly attracted  to  each  other,  without  either  of  the  two 
individuals  being  aware  of  it.  However  that  may  have 
been,  Dr.  Linsky  left  Cannes  the  following  day. 

The  Baroness  and  I  were  both  amazed  at  the  way  in 
which  Djenia  accepted  her  change  of  surroundings. 
From  the  time  she  was  six  years  old  she  had  been  living 
in  a  very  poor  home,  a  house  built  of  wood,  which  must 
have  been  very  little  different  from  the  houses  of  the 
peasants.  She  had  now  come  to  all  the  comfort  and 
luxury  of  a  first-class  hotel,  and  yet  she  did  not  show 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  9 

the  slightest  surprise.  She  asked  for  things  from  the 
servants  and  allowed  them  to  wait  on  her,  as  though 
she  had  always  been  accustomed  to  being  waited  on. 
She  handled  her  knife  and  fork  and  behaved  at  table  as 
though  she  had  been  educated,  from  her  earliest  infancy, 
in  an  English  nursery.  A  still  more  curious  thing  was 
the  fact  that  the  blue  sky  of  Cannes,  and  all  the  flowers 
of  a  Riviera  winter,  neither  excited  her  surprise  nor 
her  enthusiasm.  .When  we  talked  to  her  about  such 
things,  she  would  answer  in  a  pleasant,  obliging  way: 
"  Yes,  it  is  very  beautiful,  very  beautiful  indeed,"  but 
there  was  a  far-away  look  in  her  eyes,  as  though  she 
saw  other  things  too,  the  snowy  plain,  the  sombre  forest 
and,  perhaps,  the  isba  of  the  poor  priest,  her  grand- 
father. She  owned  that  she  missed  the  snow  and  the 
howling  of  the  wolves  and,  during  her  play-time,  she 
would  go  and  slide  on  the  marble  floor  of  the  hall  in  the 
hotel.  She  told  her  "  aunt,"  with  innocent  pride,  that 
she  could  climb  the  very  highest  trees,  and  she  even 
offered  to  go  out  and  give  her  a  proof  of  her  skill  in 

that  way.     Madame  d'O objected  to  this  and  told 

her  jokingly  that  she  must  not  climb  like  that,  or  people 
would  think  that  little  Russian  girls  were  a  species  of 
the  monkey  tribe. 

I  made  her  a  present  of  a  doll.  She  had  never  dreamt 
of  such  a  beautiful  one  and,  for  a  second,  she  was  per- 
fectly speechless  with  surprise.  She  then  held  out  her 
hands  suddenly,  grasped  mine  and  gripped  it  in  such  a 
strong,  expressive  way  that  I  was  astonished.  A  child 
does  not  usually  manifest  its  feelings  in  that  way.  The 


10  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

hand-shake  is  the  gesture  of  grown-up  people  and  there 
are  so  few  people  who  know  how  to  shake  hands.  A  few 
days  later,  I  found  Djenia  playing  with  an  old  wooden 
doll  that  looked  like  an  idol  belonging  to  savages.  The 
doll's  bed  was  a  basket  full  of  rags  of  all  colours. 
The  child  was  slightly  embarrassed  when  she  saw  me 
and  then,  turning  to  the  Baroness,  she  said:  "Please 
tell  your  friend  that  I  like  her  beautiful  doll  very  much 
indeed,  but  that  I  cannot  give  this  one  up,  because  she 
is  Russian  and  she  came  with  me  from  Russia."  A 
week's  journey,  third-class,  I  thought  to  myself,  was 
certainly  not  to  be  forgotten.  I  was  deeply  touched 
by  the  child's  loyalty.  Only  the  old  soul  of  the  Sla- 
vonic race,  composed  of  so  many  different  souls,  is 
capable  of  such  deep  feeling  from  its  earliest  days. 

Madame  d'O at  once  began  to  educate  her  little 

savage.  She  gave  her  lessons  in  French  and  music  and 
this  took  her  out  of  herself,  so  that  the  lessons  were 
most  salutary.  As  time  went  on  she  was  more  and  more 
delighted  with  the  intelligence  and  the  character  of  her 
adopted  niece.  At  the  end  of  a  fortnight,  Djenia,  ac- 
companied by  her  maid,  could  go  out  shopping  and  ask 
for  things  herself  in  French.  Two  months  later,  I  was 
able  to  converse  with  her.  I  often  wondered  whether 
the  fine  maternal  instinct  would  continue  in  the  case  of 

the  Baroness  d'O .     Adoptions  of  this  kind  often 

take  place  in  Russia,  but  it  frequently  happens  that 
such  parents  weary  of  their  adopted  child,  or  the  re- 
sponsibility becomes  onerous.  The  child  is  then  de- 
serted, and  the  consequences  are  cruel.  The  figure  of 
Dr.  Linsky,  whom  I  had  seen  in  the  background  of  this 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  11 

little  picture,  somewhat  reassured  me  with  regard  to 
Djenia's  future  fate. 

For  about  six  months  after  leaving  Cannes,  Mme. 

d'O and  I  kept  up  a  correspondence.  It  then 

ceased  and  I  must  confess  that  in  this,  and  similar  ex- 
periences, the  fault  was  mine. 

Two  years  passed  by  and,  one  afternoon,  a  visiting 
card  was  brought  to  me  with  the  name  of  Madame 
Linsky  printed  on  it.  In  pencil  some  one  had  written, 
Baroness  d'O . 

"  Married  and  done  for ! "  I  said  to  myself,  rather 
vulgarly. 

It  can  very  well  be  imagined  with  what  pleasure  and 
curiosity  I  received  my  unexpected  visitor !  She  had 
changed  so  much  that  I  should  have  hesitated  before 
acknowledging  her,  if  I  had  met  her  in  the  street.  She 
was  no  longer  the  interesting  widow  garbed  in  sweeping 
dresses  trimmed  with  crape,  but  a  very  simple  looking 
woman,  wearing  a  tailor  costume  and  a  toque.  The 
toque  had  not  come  from  a  first-class  milliner,  but  un- 
derneath it  was  a  face  which  indicated  health  and 
happiness. 

"  You  see,  I  have  changed  my  name,"  she  said,  blush- 
ing slightly. 

"  I  expected  you  would,"  I  answered,  smiling. 

"  You  expected  I  should !  But  when  you  were  at 
Cannes,  I  never  thought  of  this  change." 

"  Quite  possible,"  I  said ;  "  but  Nature  was  thinking 
of  it  for  you." 

"  Had  you  really  guessed  it?  "  asked  Madame  Linsky, 
her  small  eyes  big  with  surprise. 


13  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

"Yes  —  and  I  hope  you  are  happy?" 

"  Oh,  so  happy ! "  she  replied.  "  I  am  no  longer  ill 
at  all,  would  you  believe  it  ?  " 

"  Why,  of  course,"  I  said,  rather  tantalisingly. 
"  And  what  about  Dje'nia?  " 

"  Djenia  is  a  good  girl  and  very  satisfactory.  I 
have  succeeded  in  getting  the  other  sister,  too,  so  that 
they  have  the  same  advantages  as  each  other." 

Seated  there  by  my  table  where,  a  year  later,  I  was 
to  weave  a  romance,  Madame  Linsky  told  me  hers,  a 
romance  written  by  the  gods.  She  told  me  all  the 
obstacles  she  had  had  to  surmount.  Her  family  had 
objected  to  her  marriage  and  Dr.  Linsky 's  wife  had 
refused  to  have  a  divorce.  Then,  too,  there  had  been 
the  terrible  question  of  money. 

"  It  is  thanks  to  the  forethought  of  my  husband  that 
things  have  come  all  right,"  said  Madame  Linsky. 
"  The  night  before  he  died  he  had  made  one  of  his 
friends  promise  to  try  to  make  everything  easy  for  me, 
in  case  I  should  ever  care  for  a  poor  man,  so  that  I 
might  have  my  share  of  happiness." 

"  Ah,  I  recognise  Russian  sentimentality  there ! "  I 
exclaimed. 

"  Yes,  and  a  very  noble  kind  of  sentimentality,  too. 
My  husband  had  always  felt  a  certain  remorse  at  having 
married  so  young  a  wife.  His  friend  did  not  fail  me. 
By  marrying  again,  I  lost  my  widow's  pension,  and 
this,  of  course,  made  everything  impossible.  This 
friend  obtained  permission  for  the  half  of  my  pension 
to  be  granted  to  me.  I  could,  therefore,  follow  my 
inclination.  The  Government  is  sending  Monsieur  Lin- 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  13 

sky  on  a  three  years'  research  mission  to  France,  Eng- 
land, and  Germany.  We  are  now  living  in  a  furnished 
flat  in  the  Boulevard  St.  Michel.  The  surroundings 
are  poor,  but  not  vulgar." 

Madame  Linsky  invited  me  to  tea  with  her.  "  It  will 
not  be  the  mandarin's  tea,"  she  said ;  "  there  is  none 
left,  but  it  will  not  be  undrinkable." 

On  the  day  appointed  I  went  to  the  Boulevard  St. 
Michel.  I  was  very  curious  to  see  the  home  of  this 
Russian  grande  dame,  in  the  very  heart  of  the  Latin 
Quarter.  The  house  in  which  she  was  living  was  situ- 
ated between  two  court-yards  which  looked  fairly  clean. 
The  wooden  staircase  was  uncarpeted,  the  balustrade 
was  of  iron,  the  walls  white,  and  the  window  more  or 
less  dusty.  The  entrance  was  not  precisely  attractive. 
On  reaching  the  second  floor  I  rang  the  bell.  A  tall 
man,  wearing  a  military  coat,  opened  the  door.  In  the 
semi-obscurity  I  thought,  at  first,  that  it  was  a  man- 
servant, but  fortunately  I  recognised  Dr.  Linsky.  He 
showed  me  into  the  adjoining  room,  and  his  wife  came 
forward  with  outstretched  hands  to  welcome  me. 
There  were  a  few  seconds  of  inevitable  embarrassment, 
which  the  little  girls  helped  to  overcome.  Djenia  had 
grown  very  much,  and  was  as  straight  as  a  young  pine- 
tree.  I  looked  at  her  face  and  saw  that  she  was  happy. 
Her  eyes  had  an  expression  of  gravity,  like  those  of 
children  who  have  witnessed  sad  things.  Her  younger 
sister  was  more  refined  looking  and  prettier,  but  she 
had  less  individuality.  Both  of  them  were  very  simply 
dressed,  but  there  was  a  certain  elegance  about  them. 
They  were  wearing  very  short  dresses  of  dark  blue 


14  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

serge,  with  Russian  blouses,  black  stockings  and  sandal 
slippers.  A  huge  bow  of  black  ribbon  tied  their  plait 
of  fair  hair,  and  this  bow  revealed  a  maternal  co- 
quettishness  which  I  was  glad  to  see.  Djenia  prepared 
tea  and  served  us  with  an  ease  and  surcness  rarely  seen 
in  a  child  of  twelve.  No,  it  certainly  was  not  the 
mandarin's  tea  and  there  was  no  beautiful  scenery  as 
there  had  been  at  Cannes.  The  little  Boulevard  St. 
Michel  drawing-room  had  two  windows  looking  on  to 
a  court-yard.  The  embroidered  white  muslin  curtains, 
the  furniture  covered  with  red  velvet,  and  the  wall  paper 
were  all  particularly  ugly,  but  there  was  an  Oriental 
rug  on  the  floor,  there  were  embroidered  stuffs  and  Rus- 
sian weapons  on  the  walls,  artistic  knick-knacks  in  all 
the  corners,  shelves  laden  with  books,  signs  of  intel- 
lectual work  about  and  then,  too,  there  were  flowers. 

The  dining-room  door  was  open,  the  samovar  was 
singing  on  the  table  and  a  rich  tea  service  gave  a  luxuri- 
ous note  to  the  commonplace  poverty.  All  these  things 
made  the  little  flat  seem  cheerful  and  the  rays  of  love 
gave  a  pleasant  warmth  to  the  whole  atmosphere. 
Whilst  the  doctor  was  sipping  his  glass  of  tea,  with  its 
slices  of  lemon,  I  examined  him.  There  was  an  element 
that  was  irremediably  rustic  about  him,  but  he  gave 
the  impression  of  being  a  good  sort  of  force.  I  could 
imagine  him  directing  an  ambulance,  staunching  wounds 
and  patclung  up  quantities  of  soldiers,  but  I  could  not 
fancy  him  caring  for  little  aches  and  pains.  Intellec- 
tually, he  was  superior  to  his  wife,  but  by  birth  and 
education  he  had  remained  inferior.  Unless  I  am  mis- 
taken, he  is  quite  aware  of  this.  To  him,  his  wife  will 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  15 

always  be  Baroness  d'O .  When  he  heard  her  tell- 
ing me  enthusiastically  how  much  she  enjoyed  her  new 
life,  dining  at  the  little  Latin  Quarter  restaurants,  going 
to  the  small  theatres,  mounting  on  the  top  of  trams,  he 
smiled  at  her,  as  though  thanking  her  for  showing  that 
she  was  so  happy. 

When  I  rose  to  take  leave  of  her,  after  staying  a 
long  time,  Madame  Linsky  said  to  me,  in  the  most  natu- 
ral way  and  with  a  perfectly  convinced  tone :  "  You 
see  what  a  difference  there  is  between  the  old  days  and 
the  present!  When  you  first  knew  me,  I  was  so  poor, 
and  now,  I  am  so  rich ! "  She  looked  round  at  her 
wealth  —  her  husband  and  her'  two  adopted  daughters. 
I  wondered  whether  this  were  mere  literature,  as  women 
of  Slavonic  race  are  apt  to  indulge  in  literature  quite 
unconsciously.  It  seemed  to  me,  though,  that  this  was 
real  honeymoon  sentiment. 

A  fortnight  later  I  left  Paris,  and  from  that  day  to 
this  I  have  never  had  any  news  of  the  little  family. 
This  is  another  instance  of  my  own  negligence.  I  some- 
times wonder  whether  Madame  Linsky,  after  thirteen 
years  of  married  life,  still  considers  herself  rich.  How- 
ever that  may  be,  she  was,  without  knowing  it,  the 
instrument  of  my  conversion  and  of  my  progress.  As 
I  was  going  slowly  downstairs  after  this  visit,  the  cause 
of  the  transformation  I  had  just  seen  came  suddenly 
to  my  mind.  I  stopped  short  on  one  of  the  stairs, 
struck  by  that  word  cause!  A  storm  in  the  China  Sea 
and  a  broken  leg !  If  it  had  not  been  for  that  accident, 
Djenia  and  her  sister  would  never  have  left  their  native 
country.  They  would  simply  have  vegetated  there, 


16  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

without  any  culture,  and  would  probably  have  married 
some  poor  priest,  like  their  own  grandfather.  A  storm 
of  wind  in  that  far-off  country  was  to  affect  two  little 
unknown  girls,  who  were  living  quiet  lives  in  an  out-of- 
the-way  part  of  Siberia,  and  the  effects  of  that  storm 
would  go  on  multiplying  and  continuing  during  several 
generations.  I  saw  all  this  very  vividly  and  was  struck 
by  it.  Were  we  not  free  agents,  I  asked  myself.  Over 
and  over  again  I  asked  myself  this  question  and,  when 
once  I  was  in  the  carriage,  driving  back  to  my  hotel,  I 
began  going  back  to  the  causes  of  things,  thinking,  with 
all  my  powers  of  thought,  along  the  lines  that  had  sud- 
denly been  opened  out  to  me.  The  points  had  been 
turned  for  me. 

I  have  not  even  yet  discovered  how  things  have  been 
arranged,  but  I  know  that  they  are  determined  and 
ordered  from  their  very  beginnings  by  the  divine  powers 
which  are  the  radio-activity  of  the  Eternal  God.  I  no 
longer  see  man,  but  the  Terrestrian ;  our  cities  and  our 
homes  are  to  me  merely  the  habitations  of  the  Terres- 
trians,  our  planet  is  the  work-field  and  the  battle-field 
of  higher  beings,  of  the  army  of  Heaven,  of  those  forces 
that  we  call  Providence  and  Nature.  The  life  that  I 
had  lived  with  indifference,  anger  and  indignation, 
seemed  to  unfold  before  me  like  a  marvellous  flower ;  like 
a  passion-flower,  it  is  true,  with  the  instruments  of 
crucifixion  marked  on  its  petals,  but  with  the  perfume, 
and  the  germ  of  immortality  buried  in  its  chalice.  The 
turning-point  will  arrive  for  others,  for  all  of  us,  just 
as  it  did  for  me.  Humanity  will  see  Life,  and  through 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  17 

Life  only  will  it  learn  to  know,  to  adore  and  to  worship 
its  "  first  motive  power." 

Whilst  I  was  writing  this  little  romance  about 
Madame  Linsky,  which  had  had  such  an  influence  on 
my  thoughts,  a  parcel  was  brought  to  me  from  Princess 

C ,  a  charming  Russian  woman  with  whom  I  had 

played  bridge  a  great  deal.  I  was  very  much  struck 
by  the  arrival  of  this  little  souvenir  from  Russia,  just 
at  the  very  moment  when  I  was  writing  of  the  Russian 
soul.  The  parcel  contained  two  little  Easter  offerings. 
The  one  was  a  porcelain  dish  representing  three  eggs  and 
two  cakes,  one  of  which  was  surmounted  by  the  sym- 
bolical rose  and  the  other  by  the  paschal  lamb.  The 
other  object  was  suitable  for  a  child.  It  was  a  little 
box,  on  the  lid  of  which  was  a  table  of  white  wood,  an 
earthenware  jug  and  a  red  bowl.  By  the  table  was  a 
Russian  peasant  woman,  wearing  a  black  and  red 
checked  skirt,  a  pink  spotted  apron  and  shoes  made  of 
the  bark  of  a  tree.  A  yellow  silk  handkerchief  was  tied 
under  her  chin.  She  had  fair  hair,  a  pinky  white  com- 
plexion and  blue  eyes.  This  peasant  woman  was  strik- 
ingly like  little  Djenia.  It  might  have  been  her  mother, 
and  Djenia  would  certainly  have  grown  up  looking  like 
this,  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  fateful  storm. 

The  coincidence  of  this  little  present  coming,  just  as 
I  was  writing  on  this  Russian  subject,  would  have 
amused  me  formerly.  At  present  such  a  thing  touches 
me,  for  I  think  it  was  intended  by  the  gods,  for  whom 
I  am  working.  I  believe  it  to  be  one  of  those  encourage- 
ments which  they  give  to  their  collaborators  during  any 


18  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

extra  efforts  on  the  up-hill  way.  They  know  that  I  am 
going  up-hill  and  that  I  shall  have  to  climb  much  higher 
and  with  great  difficulty.  Was  this  coincidence  any 
more  extraordinary  than  the  fact  of  the  repercussion 
of  that  storm  in  the  China  Sea  reaching  me,  a  poor  atom 
of  the  Infinite,  and  making  me  write  this  long  chapter 
eighteen  years  later? 


Prompted  by  this  idea,  I  began  to  go  back  to  the 
causes  of  such  events  as  had  made,  and  as  go  on  making, 
our  history.  I  began  to  think  of  the  causes  which  had 
brought  about  certain  marriages  and  certain  accidental 
deaths,  of  the  causes  of  those  tragical  little  events  which 
some  of  the  daily  papers  give  in  three  lines,  but  which 
frequently  contain,  between  those  lines,  whole  volumes 
of  human  grief  and  suffering. 

All  these  various  incidents  were  due,  I  felt,  not  to 
chance  and  not  to  a  blind  fatality,  but  to  a  living,  deter- 
mining, individual  thought,  to  a  will-power  coming  from 
the  Beyond,  from  the  Great  Beyond.  The  admirable 
weaving  and  the  combining  of  circumstances  revealed  to 
me  the  work  of  a  supreme  Master,  the  work  that  poor 
romance  writers  endeavour,  with  more  or  less  success, 
to  copy,  but  always  with  less  success  rather  than 
more. 

To  minds  to  which  such  things  appeal,  the  searching 
for  these  causes  is  intensely  interesting  and  astounding. 
One  goes  back,  frequently,  to  a  certain  point  and  there, 
quite  unexpectedly,  one  loses  the  thread.  Then,  sud- 
denly, some  little  incident,  or  perhaps  just  a  word,  puts 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  19 

the  thread  back  into  our  hand.  There  is  always  a  cer- 
tain point  beyond  which  our  vision  cannot  penetrate, 
and  when  we  come  to  this  we  are  as  furious  and  disap- 
pointed as  a  dog  after  losing  its  scent.  On  going  back 
to  the  causes  of  things,  one  has  a  sensation  of  alarm  at 
first,  and  one  draws  back  as  though  at  the  edge  of  a 
precipice.  If  one  has  the  courage  to  advance  once 
more  and  to  look  down,  one  soon  sees  a  little  speck  of 
light  and  the  light  becomes  more  clear  and  more  bril- 
liant, so  that  one  is  no  longer  afraid. 

Oh,  those  first  causes  of  our  success,  of  our  defeat, 
or  of  our  vices !  How  far  back  they  date  and  what  in- 
significant things  they  appeared  at  the  time  —  a  glance, 
a  word,  a  gesture,  the  insignificance  of  the  proverbial 
orange  peel. 

I  had  always  been  very  much  surprised  at  a  certain 
marriage,  which  had  united  two  individuals  who  ap- 
peared to  be  absolutely  unsuited  to  each  other.  They 
were  of  different  race,  of  different  religion  and  of  dif- 
ferent mentality.  The  other  day  I  discovered  that  one 
of  the  ancestors  of  the  husband  had  been  instrumental 
in  the  conquest  and  civilisation  of  his  wife's  native 
country.  It  is  in  this  way  that  the  gods  weave  our  des- 
tinies, and  they  select  their  agents  without  any  consid- 
eration for  our  private  affairs  or  for  our  feelings.  It 
is  the  mother  who,  by  her  very  love,  prepares  the  un- 
happiness  of  her  children.  The  father,  thanks  to  his 
over-severity,  drives  his  son  to  commit  suicide.  A 
brother  plays  at  horses  with  his  little  sister,  puts  a 
slip  knot  round  her  throat  and  drives  her  round  and 
round  the  table.  He  shouts  to  her  and  she  gallops. 


20  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

He  pulls  his  rein  and  she  falls  down,  strangled  uninten- 
tionally by  her  own  brother.  A  man  introduces  to  his 
dearest  friend  the  individual  who,  later  on,  is  the  cause 
of  this  friend's  dishonour.  A  wife  urges  her  beloved 
husband  to  take  a  certain  train,  in  which  he  meets  with 
his  death.  A  man  tells  his  chauffeur  that  he  is  in  a 
hurry.  The  chauffeur  endeavours  to  pass  before  the 
approaching  train.  He  passes,  but  one  of  the  wheels 
of  the  automobile  is  caught.  The  stronger  force 
crushes  the  lesser  one  and  the  man,  young  and  full  of 
life,  who,  a  few  moments  before,  pronounced  his  own 
death  warrant,  is  nothing  but  a  lifeless  form,  covered 
with  blood.  His  soul  has  been  called  away  with  rough 
brutality.  It  is  the  climax  of  divine  irony  that  the 
creature  frequently  has  to  prepare  his  own  ruin,  his  own 
destruction.  And  how  assiduously  he  works  to  prepare 
this!  For  his  worst  enemy,  or  for  his  dearest  friend, 
he  could  not  do  more. 

It  does  not  need  much  reflection  to  realise  that  these 
terrifying  combinations  are  intentional,  that  they  are 
elaborated  by  another  will  than  ours.  The  refinement 
of  cruelty  of  which  they  would  be  a  proof  make  this 
very  cruelty  impossible.  They  are  probably  arranged 
in  order  to  intensify  and  vary  Life,  and  this  intensity 
and  variety  are  probably  necessary  for  our  progress. 
If  Providence  remorselessly,  but  probably  not  without 
pitying  us,  sends  us  along  difficult  and  abominable  paths, 
it  is  because  Providence  knows  where  such  paths  lead 
and  is,  perhaps,  obliged  to  send  us  by  them.  Logically, 
with  open-eyed  faith,  we  can  have  all  confidence. 

Before  my  "  renaissance  "  I  happened  to  meet,  at  a 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  21 

certain  watering  place,  a  woman  whose  nerves  were  in 
a  pitiful  state.  She  told  me  the  reason  of  this.  Her 
mother,  when  in  the  country  with  her  two  younger 
daughters,  had  commissioned  this  married  sister  to  have 
the  bedrooms  of  the  two  girls  repapered,  as  a  surprise 

before  their  return  to  town.     Madame  X chose  a 

beautiful  silver-grey  paper,  which  was  very  expensive. 
It  appeared  that  it  was  saturated  with  arsenic.  It 
killed  the  two  girls  within  six  months  and  their  father 
died  of  grief.  Madame  X could  not  forgive  her- 
self for  having  been  the  instrument  of  this  horrible 
drama.  When  she  told  me  the  story,  with  all  its  heart- 
rending details,  I  declared,  impulsively,  that  it  was 
"  infamous."  At  present,  I  should  say  to  her:  "  Your 
mother,  the  manufacturer  who  composed  this  murder- 
ous formula,  the  salesman  who  showed  you  the  roll  of 
paper  and  recommended  it,  and  you,  who  chose  it,  were 
all  carrying  out  one  of  the  plans  of  Providence.  If 
this  plan  had  not  had  the  ultimate  good  of  those  whom 
it  struck  down,  it  would  be  monstrous  and  could  not 
logically  have  been  carried  out."  This  idea,  I  fancy, 

would  have  consoled  Madame  X better  than  all  the 

commonplace  things  which  are  uttered  by  humanity 
when  certain  trials  confront  us. 

When  searching  for  the  causes  of  things,  one  soon 
learns  to  distinguish  the  grouping  of  individuals.  This 
grouping  is  very  curious  to  study.  It  has  its  mathe- 
matics, its  geometry,  its  chemistry.  We  exclaim,  in 
the  most  childish  way,  on  meeting  this  or  that  person : 
"  How  small  the  world  is !  "  It  is  not  the  world  which 
is  small,  but  the  little  circle  in  which  we  are  evolving. 


22  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

I  have  already  said  this,  but  there  are  some  truths  which 
we  cannot  repeat  often  enough. 

It  amused  me  to  mark,  by  certain  signs  and  lines,  the 
appearance  and  reappearance,  in  my  orbit,  of  the  per- 
sons who  had  more  or  less  affected  it.  Some  of  them 
returned  at  long,  but  regular,  intervals ;  others  at  very 
irregular  intervals ;  some  have  only  crossed  it  like  thun- 
derbolts, causing  the  most  disagreeable  disturbances. 

On  going  back  to  the  causes  of  things,  I  have  had 
glimpses  of  the  absoluteness  of  our  solidarity,  not  only 
with  our  fellow-creatures,  but  with  the  three  kingdoms 
of  Nature.  The  play  of  affinities,  sympathies  and  an- 
tipathies, resulting  from  this  solidarity,  revealed  to  me 
something  of  the  extent  of  our  radiation. 

When  my  vision  became  objective,  I  naturally  saw 
things  from  a  determinist's  point  of  view  and  I  began 
to  read  history  once  more.  It  had  always  bored  me 
hitherto,  as  a  book  does  which  we  do  not  understand. 
From  the  moment  when  I  comprehended  that  it  was  the 
work  of  the  gods,  I  was  intensely  interested  and  I  began 
to  search  for  their  soul  and  for  their  plan.  I  began 
to  look  for  the  mechanism  of  Life.  I  saw  nations  born 
from  a  small  group  of  individuals,  I  saw  them  gradually 
getting  organised,  describing  curves  with  double 
branches,  attaining  to  the  very  height  of  power  and 
glory  and  then  —  descending  again,  but  all  of  them  in 
different  ways.  Some  of  them  slipped  downwards  and 
were  scarcely  conscious  that  they  were  slipping. 
Others  came  down  by  leaps  and  bounds.  I  saw  their 
evolution  and  then  their  annihilation,  but  this  never 
took  place  until  they  had  transmitted  what  was  ncces- 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  23 

i 

sary  for  the  continuity  of  progress.  I  saw  this  geo- 
metrical figure  in  races,  families  and  individuals,  and  I 
understood  that  it  belonged  to  the  plan  of  the  Universe, 
and  that  if  the  Terrestrian  lived  it,  he  had  certainly 
not  planned  it.  Before  very  long  I  began  to  feel  the 
existence  of  the  psychical  currents  which  make  a  spir- 
itual atmosphere  for  us,  of  those  currents  which  are 
more  in  number,  and  greater  in  strength,  than  those  of 
the  Ocean,  currents  which  penetrate  into  our  cells, 
bringing  with  them,  in  waves,  the  essence  of  Life,  ideas, 
images,  orders,  which  put  us  into  communication  with 
each  other,  with  the  whole  Universe  perhaps.  And,  on 
feeling  myself  so  entirely  in  divine  hands,  I  experienced 
the  most  delightful  sensation  of  relief,  and  I  longed  to 
be  able  to  communicate  this  to  all  my  fellow-beings.  A 
year  after  my  "  renaissance,"  the  pen  was  put  between 
my  fingers,  and  I  wrote  a  novel,  in  which  I  introduced 
creatures  who  were  living  out  their  destiny,  but  not 
making  it.  Very,  very  few  people  noticed  the  change 
of  conception,  but,  for  me,  the  whole  interest  of  the 
book  lay  in  this.  I  was  destined  to  learn  from  this  that 
the  reader  does  not  see  with  the  author,  unless  he  is 
almost  in  unison  with  him.  And  in  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury, the  majority  of  men,  those  who  cannot  think,  be- 
lieve that  they  are  free!  They  are  satisfied  with  look- 
ing at  events,  without  going  back  to  the  causes.  This 
is  the  reason  of  their  constant  illusion,  an  illusion  which 
was  no  doubt  intended.  It  was  necessary,  but  it  is  most 
pathetic  in  its  child-like  presumption.  These  people 
are  affected  by  all  the  elements,  by  the  sun,  the  rain, 
by  the  shadow  of  a  cloud.  Their  movements  are  con- 


24  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

nected  with  the  movements  of  millions  of  individuals 
that  they  do  not  see,  that  they  do  not  know,  and  yet 
they  consider  themselves  free!  They  live,  threatened 
as  they  are  by  the  forces  overhead  and  by  the  forces 
under  their  feet,  and  still  they  believe  that  they  are 
free!  Religious  people  bend  their  backs  under  the  ills 
which  they  have  to  bear;  others  put  their  backs  up  in 
disdain  or  utter  blasphemies.  Some  remain  entirely  in- 
different, but  they  all  persist  in  believing  themselves 
free !  In  spite  of  this,  they  repeat,  like  so  many  phono- 
graphs, the  words :  "  Man  moves  and  God  leads  him." 
This  conciliates  their  reason  and  their  pride.  They 
admit  that  they  are  led.  It  would  be  more  difficult  not 
to  see  this  than  to  see  it,  but  they  like  to  persuade  them- 
selves that  their  movements  are  free.  They  do  not  real- 
ise that  these  are  caused  by  other  movements,  just  as 
one  wave  is  the  result  of  another  wave  and  that 
if  their  movements  as  atoms  were  free,  they  would  de- 
termine the  action  of  God.  Is  it  possible  to  conceive 
of  the  Eternal  God  being  directed  by  His  own  crea- 
tures? 

Last  week  a  writer,  after  analysing  the  genesis  and 
development  of  certain  political  events,  concluded  his 
article  with  the  words :  "  Is  it  possible  that  we  are 
not  free?  "  This  was  the  very  phrase  I  had  pronounced 
as  I  stood  on  the  stairs  at  Madame  Linsky's.  The  acute 
anguish  which  I  now  heard  in  it  made  me  start  and  then 
I  exclaimed,  joyfully:  "At  last!" 

Ah,  no,  we  are  not  free,  and  very  fortunately  for  us ! 
The  earth  and  its  sun  are  not  free.  The  stars  and  the 
worlds  are  not  free,  neither  are  the  Powers  which  gov- 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  25 

ern  them.  The  Eternal  God,  even,  must  be  the  slave 
of  His  own  plan. 

In  their  very  heart  I  fancy  that  men  must  always 
have  felt,  more  or  less,  that  they  were  obeying  unalter- 
able laws.  I  fancy  they  have  only  been  pretending, 
after  the  manner  of  children  in  their  games,  to  believe 
in  their  own  free  will.  For  long  centuries  they  have 
been  hovering  round  the  truth,  and  the  very  light  from 
it  has  blinded  them.  By  means  of  the  quantities  of 
discoveries  that  have  been  made,  Providence  has  been 
preparing  them  to  receive  it,  and  the  hour  is  now  ap- 
proaching when  they  will  know  that  they  are  doing  His 
work  and  not  their  own,  and,  with  this  certainty,  what- 
ever may  be  their  task,  they  will  do  it  joyfully  and 
proudly. 

In  the  eighteenth  century,  La  Bruyere  wrote  this 
amusing  phrase :  "  Everything  has  been  said,  as  there 
have  been  men  seven  thousand  years,  and  thinking  men." 
Ah,  no,  everything  had  not  been  said.  Among  other 
things,  the  discovery  had  still  to  be  made  that  the  Earth 
and  the  Terrestrian  were  not  created  by  a  touch  of  the 
Divine  wand,  as  the  sacred  poets  fancied,  but  that  they 
had  been  slowly  and  very  laboriously  developed,  thanks 
to  the  action  of  innumerable  forces.  And  everything 
has  not  been  said  even  yet.  We  know  scarcely  anything 
of  the  mathematics,  the  geometry  and  the  chemistry  of 
our  physical  life,  and  next  to  nothing  of  the  electricity 
which  we  have  captured  and  which  we  handle  like  waste- 
ful children.  We  know  nothing  of  the  psychical  life; 
we  do  not  even  know  the  real  name,  nor  the  true  func- 
tion of  what  we  call  evil.  And  when  we  do  know  all 


26  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

this,  we  shall  still  know  comparatively  nothing.  All 
will  not  have  been  said,  and  all  will  never  be  said,  either 
in  this  world  or  in  the  others,  for  it  is  the  Eternal  God 
who  speaks. 

Solomon,  in  spite  of  all  his  wisdom,  wrote :  "  There 
is  nothing  new  under  the  sun."  And  man,  who  has  seen 
so  much  that  was  new,  goes  on  repeating  the  childish 
phrase,  because  it  is  a  pretty  one  and  it  sounds  well, 
like  all  that  is  hollow.  The  great  proverb-writer  found 
nothing  new  and,  with  a  harem  like  his,  that  is  slightly 
discouraging  for  other  men. 

Nothing  new  under  the  sun!  Has  there  not  been 
something  new  continually,  on  our  planet,  from  the  very 
second  when,  all  nebulous,  it  emerged  from  the  depths 
of  the  Infinite,  when  the  Spirit  of  God  was  brooding 
over  the  waters?  Will  there  be  nothing  new  in  its  last 
pulsation?  Will  its  extinction  be  nothing  new  under 
the  sun?  And  you  were  a  wise  man,  oh,  Solomon! 


CHAPTER  II 

LAUSANNE. 

I  HAVE  already  said  that  books  never  come  into  our 
hands  by  chance,  that  they  are  "  voices  in  space,"  the 
agents  of  the  gods.  Something  fresh  is  constantly  hap- 
pening to  make  me  more  and  more  convinced  of  this. 

Some  three  years  ago,  an  open  copy  of  The  Illustrated 
London  News  on  the  table  of  the  hotel  reading-room 
attracted  my  attention.  I  took  it  up,  thinking  that 
the  picture  I  saw  represented  a  chrysanthemum  exhibi- 
tion. The  picture  made  me  start,  for  what  I  had  taken 
to  be  chrysanthemums  were  a  multitude  of  human 
heads.  My  mistake  was  not  due  to  bad  eyesight,  as 
my  sight  is  excellent,  but  to  the  close  grouping  of  a 
crowd  of  Terrestrians,  listening  to  a  socialist  Member 
of  Parliament  on  Tower  Hill.  Half  the  crowd  of  men 
were  facing  and  the  other  half  had  their  backs  turned 
to  the  photographer.  They  were  all  wearing  caps,  and 
these  caps  made  their  heads  look  round,  like  so  many 
huge  chrysanthemums.  Whenever  it  happens  that  our 
apparent  insignificance  is  thus  brought  to  my  notice, 
I  feel  a  certain  humiliation  and  anguish,  and  a  kind  of 
ridiculous  dread  lest  we  should  ever  be  crushed  out,  as 
we  so  thoughtlessly  or  cruelly  crush  the  ants  with  our 
feet.  I  went  upstairs  to  my  room  in  no  enviable  frame 
of  mind. 

Whilst  resting,  I  picked  up  an  American  review,  TJie 

27 


28  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

Century  Magazine*  quite  mechanically,  as  I  thought. 
On  turning  over  its  pages,  I  was  surprised  to  find  an 
article  entitled  "  Sense  and  Sensibility,"  by  Helen  Kel- 
ler. I  have  an  immense  admiration  for  this  woman  and 
I  feel  that  I  owe  her  a  great  deal.  She  had  been  deaf 
and  blind  from  the  age  of  nineteen  months.  In  spite 
of  this  affliction,  she  had  passed  all  the  higher  examina- 
tions, had  learnt  Greek,  Latin,  French  and  German, 
and  had  become  a  writer.  I  had  read  the  story  of  her 
life,  told  by  herself.  In  this  article,  "  Sense  and  Sensi- 
bility," she  told  not  only  what  she  saw,  felt  and  guessed, 
but  how  all  this  came  about,  for,  as  she  herself  said,  she 
"  only  had  three  doors  to  her  house."  This  article  is 
a  document  which  is  quite  unique.  It  reveals  a  pro- 
digious effort  of  the  human  soul  and,  on  that  account, 
it  certainly  ought  to  have  its  place  in  this  reading  of 
life,  on  which  I  am  engaged. 

Helen  Keller  is  an  American  from  Alabama,  one  of 
the  Southern  States.  The  magazine  gives  several  por- 
traits of  her.  She  is  of  medium  height,  looks  about 
thirty-five  years  of  age  and  is  dressed  with  elegant  sim- 
plicity. Her  thick  hair  is  drawn  to  the  back  of  her 
head  and  coiled  low  in  her  neck,  showing  a  little  of  her 
ears,  her  poor  ears  that  have  no  resonance.  Her  eye- 
lids are  lowered  over  the  sightless  pupils.  The  shape 
of  the  forehead,  the  curve  of  the  eyebrow  and  the 
determined  nose  all  testify  to  intelligence  and  strong 
will ;  the  cheeks,  the  rounded  chin  and  the  full  lips  give 
an  impression  of  affection  and  kindness.  The  reflection 
of  an  inward  smile  lights  up  the  lower  part  of  the  face. 
One  of  the  portraits  depicts  her  standing  up,  just  in 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  29 

front  of  her  verandah,  all  gay  with  flowers.  She  is 
holding  the  bridle  of  her  horse,  King,  and  is  evidently 
talking  to  him.  Another  portrait  shows  her  at  the  foot 
of  a  tree,  with  her  fingers  on  the  bark,  listening  to  the 
language  of  the  sap.  The  tree  is  talking  to  her  and 
her  whole  body  is  listening  and  —  can  understand.  In 
another  portrait,  she  is  seated  on  the  window-sill.  Her 
left  arm  is  thrown  round  a  splendid  little  three-year-old 
child,  "  the  little  boy  next  door."  The  light  has  caught 
all  the  warmth  of  her  caress,  all  the  maternal  feeling  in 
this  blind,  deaf  woman,  and  it  is  infinitely  pathetic. 

Helen  Keller  was  six  years  old,  when  an  admirable 
governess  was  providentially  sent  to  her,  a  woman  who 
had  been  blind  herself  and  had  been  trained  in  the  Per- 
kins' Institution.  She  undertook  to  draw  the  poor 
child  out  of  the  darkness  and  silence  in  which  she  found 
her.  She  placed  little  Helen's  fingers  on  her  own  lips, 
lips  which  spoke;  she  made  her  touch  the  various  ob- 
jects, spelt  the  names  of  these  objects  on  the  palm  of 
her  hand,  and,  in  this  way,  put  her  into  touch  with  a 
world  which  had  hitherto  been  invisible  and  intangible 
to  her.  Helen  Keller  describes  this  wonderful  initia- 
tion :  — 

"  Before  my  teacher  came  to  me,  I  did  not  know  that 
I  am.  I  lived  in  a  world  that  was  a  no-world.  ...  I 
did  not  know  that  I  knew  aught,  or  that  I  lived  or 
acted  or  desired.  I  had  neither  will  nor  intellect.  I 
was  carried  along  to  objects  and  acts  by  a  certain  blind, 
natural  impetus.  I  had  a  mind  which  caused  me  to 
feel  anger,  satisfaction,  desire.  ...  I  also  recall  tac- 
tually  the  fact  that  never  in  the  start  of  the  body,  or  a 


30  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

heart-beat,  did  I  feel  that  1  loved  or  cared  for  anything. 
...  I  remember,  also  through  touch,  that  I  had  a 
power  of  association.  After  repeatedly  smelling  rain 
and  feeling  the  discomfort  of  wetness  I  acted  like  those 
about  me:  I  ran  to  shut  the  window.  When  I  wanted 
anything  I  liked,  ice-cream,  for  instance,  of  which  I 
was  very  fond,  I  had  a  delicious  taste  on  my  tongue 
(which,  by  the  way,  I  never  have  now),  and  in  my  hand 
I  felt  the  turning  of  the  freezer.  I  made  the  sign,  and 
my  mother  knew  I  wanted  ice-cream.  I  thought  and 
desired  in  my  fingers.  ...  I  was  not  conscious  of  any 
change  or  process  going  on  in  my  brain  when  my 
teacher  began  to  instruct  me.  I  merely  felt  keen  de- 
light in  obtaining  more  easily  what  I  wanted  by  means 
of  the  finger  motions  she  taught  me.  .  .  .  When  I 
learnt  the  meaning  of  *  I '  and  of  '  me '  and  found  that 
I  was  something,  I  began  to  think.  .  .  .  Thought  made 
me  conscious  of  love,  joy  and  all  the  emotions  .  .  .  and 
the  blind  impetus,  which  had  before  driven  me  hither 
and  thither  at  the  dictates  of  my  sensations,  vanished 
forever.  I  cannot  represent  more  clearly  than  any  one 
else  the  gradual  and  subtle  changes  from  first  impres- 
sions to  abstract  ideas.  But  I  knew  that  my  physical 
ideas,  that  is,  ideas  derived  from  material  objects,  ap- 
pear to  me  first  in  ideas  similar  to  those  of  touch.  In- 
stantaneously they  pass  into  intellectual  meanings. 
Afterwards  the  meaning  finds  expression  in  what  is 
called  *  inner  speech.'  When  I  was  a  child,  my  inner 
speech  was  inner  spelling.  Although  I  am  even  now 
frequently  caught  spelling  to  myself  on  my  fingers,  yet 
I  talk  to  myself,  too,  with  my  lips,  and  it  is  true  that 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  31 

when  I  first  learned  to  speak,  my  mind  discarded  the 
finger  symbols  and  began  to  articulate.  However,  when 
I  try  to  recall  what  some  one  has  said  to  me,  I  am  con- 
scious of  a  hand  spelling  into  mine.  .  .  .  Nature  — 
the  world  that  I  could  touch  —  was  folded  and  filled 
within  me.  ...  I  came  later  to  look  for  an  image  of 
my  emotions  and  sensations  in  others.  I  had  to  learn 
the  outward  signs  of  inward  feelings.  The  start  of 
fear,  the  suppressed,  controlled  tensity  of  pain,  the 
beat  of  happy  muscles  in  others,  had  to  be  perceived 
and  compared  with  my  own  experience  before  I  could 
trace  them  back  to  the  intangible  soul  of  another.  .  .  ." 

This  admirably  described  initiation  work  takes  place, 
undoubtedly,  with  all  creatures,  but  they  are  not  aware 
of  it.  The  immense  effort  that  it  cost  the  little  blind, 
deaf  child  made  her  conscious  of  it,  and  it  was  impos- 
sible for  her  to  forget  it. 

In  order  that  Helen  Keller  might  know  that  she  was, 
in  order  that  she  might  be  able  to  think  and  to  love, 
she  had  to  be  put  into  communication  with  the  currents 
of  universal  life,  with  her  fellow-beings.  Is  not  this  the 
proof  of  our  close  solidarity? 

The  writer  of  the  article,  "  Sense  and  Sensibility," 
affirms  that  for  a  blind,  deaf  child,  night  is  "  kindly." 
The  child  inherits  something  of  the  mind  of  its  ances- 
tors who  had  seen,  and  he  is  affected  by  the  light  that 
he  has  never  seen,  by  the  sounds  that  he  has  never 
heard.  She  adds :  "  Every  atom  of  my  body  is  a 
vibroscope.  .  .  .  Sometimes  it  seems  as  if  the  very  sub- 
stance of  my  flesh  were  so  many  eyes  looking  out  at 
will  upon  a  world  new  created  every  day.  ...  I  admit 


32  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

that  there  are  innumerable  marvels  in  the  visible  uni- 
verse unguessed  by  me.  .  .  .  There  are  myriad  sen- 
sations perceived  by  me  of  which  you  do  not  dream. 
.  .  .  Footsteps,  I  discover,  very  tactually  according  to 
the  age,  the  sex  and  the  manner  of  the  walker.  .  .  . 
I  know  when  one  kneels,  kicks,  sits  down,  or  gets  up. 
Thus  I  follow,  to  some  extent,  the  actions  of  people 
about  me  and  the  changes  of  their  postures.  .  .  .  There 
are  tactual  vibrations  which  do  not  belong  to  skin 
touch.  They  penetrate  the  skin,  the  nerves,  the  bones, 
like  pain,  heat,  and  cold.  The  beat  of  a  drum  smites 
me  through  from  the  chest  to  the  shoulder-blades.  .  .  . 
If  vibration  and  motion  combine  in  my  touch  for  any 
length  of  time,  the  earth  seems  to  run  away  while  I  stand 
still.  .  .  .  The  loftier  and  grander  vibrations  which 
appeal  to  my  emotions  are  varied  and  abundant.  I 
listen  with  awe  to  the  roll  of  the  thunder  and  the  muf- 
fled avalanche  of  sound  when  the  sea  flings  itself  upon 
the  shore.  ...  I  should  say  that  organ-music  fills  to 
an  ecstasy  the  act  of  feeling.  ...  I  enjoy  the  music  of 
the  piano  most  when  I  touch  the  instrument.  ...  I 
nm  able  to  follow  the  dominant  spirit  and  mood  of  the 
music  .  .  .  but  I  have  never  succeeded  in  distinguishing 
one  composition  from  another.  ...  I  am  exceedingly 
sensitive  to  the  harshness  of  noises  like  grinding,  scrap- 
ing, and  the  hoarse  creak  of  rusty  locks.  .  .  .  One 
day,  in  the  dining-room  of  a  hotel,  a  tactual  dissonance 
arrested  my  attention.  I  found  that  two  waiters  were 
walking  back  and  forth,  but  not  with  the  same  gait.  A 
band  was  playing  and  I  could  feel  the  music  waves 
along  the  floor.  One  of  the  waiters  walked  in  time  to 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  33 

the  band,  graceful  and  light,  while  the  other  disregarded 
the  music  and  rushed  from  table  to  table.  .  .  .  By 
placing  my  hand  on  a  person's  lips  and  throat,  I  gain 
an  idea  of  many  specific  vibrations.  .  .  .  The  utter- 
ances of  animals,  though  wordless,  are  eloquent  to  me 
»  .  .  the  cat's  purr,  its  mew  .  .  .  the  dog's  bow-wow 
of  warning,  or  of  joyous  welcome,  the  snort  of  a  horse. 
.  .  .  With  my  own  hand  I  have  felt  all  these  sounds. 
.  .  .  The  silence  of  the  country  is  always  most  welcome 
after  the  din  of  the  town.  .  .  .  The  thousand  voices  of 
the  earth  have  truly  found  their  way  to  me,  the  silky 
swish  of  leaves,  the  buzz  of  insects.  .  .  .  Heat-waves 
and  sound-waves  play  upon  my  face  in  infinite  variety 
and  combination.  .  .  .  The  rain  of  winter  is  raw,  with- 
out odour  and  dismal.  The  rain  of  spring  is  brisk, 
fragrant,  charged  with  life-giving  warmth.  .  .  .  Be- 
tween my  experience  and  the  experiences  of  others  there 
is  no  gulf  of  mute  space  which  I  cannot  bridge.  For  I 
have  endlessly  varied,  instructive  contacts  with  all  the 
world,  with  Life,  with  the  atmosphere  whose  radiant 
activity  enfolds  us  all." 

I  wish  that  I  could  give  all  these  sensations  of  a 
creature  who  is  blind  and  deaf.  Some  of  them  are  mar- 
vellously subtle.  When  Helen  Keller  speaks  of  the 
sense  of  touch,  and  of  that  of  smell,  she  tells  us  that 
she  values  the  sense  of  touch  more  highly  than  eye- 
sight. She  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  if  a  good  fairy 
were  to  offer  her  her  eyesight  in  place  of  her  sense  of 
touch,  she  should  refuse  the  exchange. 

"  The  world  that  I  see  with  my  fingers,"  she  says, 
"  is  alive,  ruddy  and  satisfying.  .  .  .  Through  the 


84  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

sense  of  touch  I  know  the  faces  of  friends,  the  illimit- 
able variety  of  straight  and  curved  lines,  all  surfaces, 
the  exuberance  of  the  soil,  the  delicate  shapes  of  flowers, 
the  noble  forms  of  trees.  .  .  .  By  placing  my  hand  on 
a  person's  lips  and  throat,  I  gain  an  idea  of  many  spe- 
cific vibrations,  and  interpret  them.  .  .  .  Touch  can- 
not bridge  distance,  but  thought  leaps  the  chasm.  I 
have  felt  the  rondure  of  the  infant's  tender  form.  I 
can  apply  this  principle  to  the  landscape,  and  to  the 
far-off  hill."  Quoting  from  a  friend's  letter  on  the 
subject  of  a  piece  of  sculpture  she  says:  "Its  more 
exquisite  beauties  could  not  be  discovered  by  the  sight, 
but  only  by  the  touch  of  the  hand  passed  over  it."  She 
goes  on  to  say: 

"  Touch  brings  the  blind  many  sweet  certainties 
which  our  more  fortunate  fellows  miss,  because  their 
sense  of  touch  is  uncultivated.  When  they  look  at 
things,  they  put  their  hands  in  their  pockets.  No 
doubt  that  is  one  reason  why  their  knowledge  is  often 
so  vague,  inaccurate  and  useless." 

The  following  passage  from  her  article  reveals  to  us 
something  with  regard  to  the  power  of  the  sense  of 
smell :  "  In  my  experience  smell  is  most  important, 
and  I  find  that  there  is  high  authority  for  the  nobility 
of  the  sense  which  we  have  neglected  and  disparaged. 
...  I  doubt  if  there  is  any  sensation  arising  from 
sight  more  delightful  than  the  odours  which  filter 
through  sun-warmed,  wind-tossed  branches,  or  the  tide 
of  scents  which  swells,  subsides,  rises  again,  wave  on 
wave,  filling  the  wide  world  with  invisible  sweetness. 
...  I  never  smell  daisies  without  living  over  again  the 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  35 

ecstatic  mornings  that  my  teacher  and  I  spent  wander- 
ing in  the  fields,  while  I  learned  new  words  and  the 
names  of  things.  .  .  .  The  sense  of  smell  has  told  me 
of  a  coming  storm  hours  before  there  was  any  sign  of  it 
visible.  ...  I  know  by  smell  the  kind  of  house  we  enter. 
I  have  recognised  an  old-fashioned  country  house  be- 
cause it  has  several  layers  of  odours,  left  by  a  succes- 
sion of  families.  ...  In  the  evening  quiet,  there  are 
fewer  vibrations  than  in  the  daytime,  and  then  I  rely 
more  largely  upon  smell.  .  .  .  Smell  gives  me  more 
idea  than  touch  or  taste  of  the  manner  in  which  sight 
and  hearing  probably  discharge  their  functions. 
Touch  seems  to  reside  in  the  object  touched,  because 
there  is  a  contact  of  surfaces  and  odour  seems  to  reside 
not  in  the  object  smelt,  but  in  th-e  organ.  Since  I  smell 
a  tree  at  a  distance,  it  is  comprehensible  to  me  that  a 
person  sees  it  without  touching  it.  ...  From  exhala- 
tions I  learn  much  about  people.  ...  I  can  distinguish 
the  carpenter  from  the  iron-worker,  the  artist  from  the 
mason  or  the  chemist.  When  a  person  passes  quickly 
from  one  place  to  another,  I  get  a  scent  impression  of 
where  he  has  been  —  in  the  kitchen,  the  garden  or  the 
sick-room.  /  gain  pleasurable  ideas  of  freshness  and 
good  taste  from  the  odours  of  soap,  toilette  isvater, 
clean  garments  .  .  .  the  dear  odours  of  those  I  love  are 
so  definite,  so  unmistakable,  that  nothing  can  quite  ob- 
literate them.  Once,  long  ago,  in  a  crowded  railway 
station,  a  lady  kissed  me  as  she  hurried  by.  .  .  .  The 
years  are  many  since  she  kissed  me.  Yet  her  odour  is 
fresh  in  my  memory.  .  .  .  All  infants  have  the  same 
scent.  ...  It  is  not  until  the  age  of  six  or  seven  that 


36  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

children  begin  to  have  perceptible,  individual  odours. 
.  .  .  The  air  is  equally  charged  with  the  odours  of  life 
and  of  destruction.  .  .  .  Out  of  doors  I  am  well  aware, 
by  smell  and  touch,  of  the  ground  we  tread  and  the 
places  we  pass.  Sometimes,  when  there  is  no  wind,  the 
odours  are  so  grouped  that  I  know  the  character  of  the 
country.  ...  I  was  once  without  the  sense  of  smell 
and  taste  for  several  days  .  .  .  and  a  loneliness  crept 
over  me  as  vast  as  the  air  whose  myriad  odours  I 
missed.  When  I  recovered  the  lost  sense,  my  heart 
bounded  with  gladness.  .  .  ." 

I  should  like  to  have  given  every  phrase  of  this  arti- 
cle, "  Sense  and  Sensibility,"  for  every  phrase  contains 
a  revelation  about  ourselves,  and  Helen  Keller's  opti- 
mism is  most  touching  and  sincere.  Ironical  people 
will,  no  doubt,  attribute  this  to  the  fact  that  she  can 
neither  see  nor  hear.  My  belief  is  that  her  optimism 
is  due  to  the  fact  that  she  sees  and  hears  more  thor- 
oughly than  we  do.  She  takes  real  pride  in  showing 
us  what  she  gets  from  Life  and  from  the  Universe  with 
"  only  three  doors  to  her  house." 

Further  on  we  read:  "Blindness  has  no  limiting 
effect  upon  my  mental  vision.  My  intellectual  horizon 
is  infinitely  wide.  ...  A  person  deprived  of  one  or 
more  senses  is  not,  as  many  seem  to  think,  turned  out 
into  a  trackless  wilderness  without  landmark  or  guide. 
The  blind  man  carries  with  him  into  his  dark  environ- 
ment all  the  faculties  essential  to  the  apprehension  of 
the  visible  world.  .  .  .  The  infinite  wonders  of  the  uni- 
verse are  revealed  to  us  as  we  are  capable  of  receiving 
them.  The  keenness  of  our  vision  depends  not  on  how 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  37 

much  we  can  see,  but  on  how  much  we  can  feel.  .  .  . 
Nature  sings  her  most  exquisite  songs  to  those  who 
love  her.  ...  I  have  walked  in  the  fields  at  early  morn- 
ing. I  have  felt  a  rose-bush  laden  with  dew  and  fra- 
grance. I  have  known  the  sweet,  shy  ways  of  little 
children.  ...  I  observe,  I  think,  I  feel,  I  imagine. 
.  .  .  The  bond  between  humanity  and  me  is  worth  keep- 
ing, even  if  the  ideas  on  which  I  base  it  prove  errone- 
ous." 

As  a  proof  of  the  mental  vision  of  those  who  are  de- 
prived of  sight,  Helen  Keller  quotes  the  sonnet  of  Mr. 
Clarence  Hawkes,  who  has  been  blind  from  childhood : 

THE  MOUNTAIN  TO  THE  PINE 

Thou  tall,  majestic  monarch  of  the  wood, 

That  standest  where  no  wild  vines  dare  to  creep, 

Men  call  thee  old,  and  say  that  thou  hast  stood 
A  century  upon  my  rugged  steep; 

Yet  unto  me  thy  life  is  but  a  day, 

When  I  recall  the  things  that  I  have  seen, — 

The  forest  monarchs  that  have  passed  away 
Upon  the  spot  where  first  I  saw  thy  green; 

For  I  am  older  than  the  age  of  man, 

Or  all  the  living  things  that  crawl  or  creep, 
Or  birds  of  air,  or  creatures  of  the  deep; 

I  was  the  first  dim  outline  of  God's  plan: 
Only  the  waters  of  the  restless  sea 
And  the  infinite  stars  in  heaven  are  old  to  me. 

If  a  blind  man  could  really  write  that  the  mountain 
was  the  -first  dim  outline  of  God's  plan  and  that,  to  him, 


38  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

the  only  things  that  are  old  are  the  waters  of  the  rest- 
less sea  and  the  infinite  stars  in  heaven,  we  must  believe 
in  psychical  vision  and,  for  my  part,  I  do  believe  in  it. 
A  curious  thing  is  that  Helen  Keller  notices  our  blind- 
ness. It  makes  her  indignant  and  she  speaks  of  it 
ironically.  "  I  have  walked,"  she  says,  "  with  people 
whose  eyes  are  full  of  light,  but  who  see  nothing  in  sea 
or  sky,  nothing  in  city  streets,  nothing  in  books.  .  .  . 
It  were  better  far  to  sail  forever  in  the  night  of  blind- 
ness, with  sense  and  feeling  and  mind,  than  to  be  thus 
content  with  the  mere  act  of  seeing.  .  .  .  The  only 
lightless  dark  is  the  night  of  darkness  and  ignorance 
and  insensibility.  .  .  .  It  is  more  difficult  to  teach 
ignorance  to  think  than  to  teach  an  intelligent  blind 
man  to  see  the  grandeur  of  Niagara." 

From  beginning  to  end  of  this  human  document,  one 
feels  that  the  soul  from  which  it  emanates  is  in  very 
close  communion  with  Nature,  with  the  Universe,  with 
the  Eternal  God.  It  gives  out  a  certain  psychical 
warmth,  which  leaves  no  doubt  about  its  sincerity. 
Helen  Keller  is  a  poet  and  we  might,  therefore,  distrust 
her  imagination,  if  it  were  not  that  her  highly  cultured 
mind  must  have  acquired  respect  for  Truth  and  the 
power  of  discerning  it.  She  analyses  the  impressions 
that  come  to  her  from  the  outside  world,  with  great 
method  and  science.  She  gives  us  her  impressions  as 
to  what  the  Invisible  is,  and  she  endeavours  to  find  out 
how  these  impressions  come  to  her.  The  faculties  that 
she  discovers  within  herself  surprise  and  amaze  her,  and 
she  is  very  proud  of  them. 

This  power  of  a  blind,  deaf  creature  revealed  to  me 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  39 

the  power  that  we  possess,  we,  who  hear  and  see.  It 
revealed  to  me,  at  the  same  time,  our  incapacity,  in  not 
knowing  how  to  use  that  power.  Our  sensory  faculty 
is  in  five  divisions,  whilst  that  of  Helen  Keller  is  in 
three  divisions.  It  is  therefore  possible  that  our  organs 
will  never  acquire  the  acuteness  of  hers.  By  training, 
by  concentration  and  by  thought,  we  could  develop  this 
considerably.  We  do  not  yet  know  how  to  see,  how  to 
hear,  nor  how  to  feel.  Our  bodies  are  "  vibroscopes," 
like  Helen  Keller's,  but  we  do  not  understand  what 
their  vibrations  say.  We  go  on  repeating,  "  I  vibrate 
...  he  vibrates  ...  we  vibrate  .  .  .  ,"  because  we 
like  the  words,  but  for  us  these  are  only  words.  We 
only  look  at  things  with  our  eyes  and,  as  this  blind  seer 
says,  our  vision  is  "  vague  and  superficial."  She  judges 
thus,  even  after  reading  our  greatest  poets,  and  her 
intuition  has  not  deceived  her.  The  instinct  of  every 
creature,  of  the  very  child,  is  to  make  use  of  its  sense 
of  touch  for  coming  into  contact  with  things.  Parents 
and  educators,  thanks  to  a  contra-instinct,  prevent  this. 
This  prohibition  has  caused  torrents  of  childish  tears. 
In  the  Museums,  and  everywhere  where  there  is  any- 
thing to  see,  a  notice  is  put  up  to  the  effect  that  we 
"  must  not  touch."  And  so,  we  put  our  hands  in  our 
pockets.  The  question  is,  Why  do  the  gods  create  in- 
stincts and  contra-instincts  ?  Is  it  for  the  sake  of 
exasperating  and  tormenting  us?  Formerly  I  used  to 
think  so.  Is  it  not  rather  so  that  our  instinct  may  be 
held  in  curb  until  it  has  become  intelligent?  The  touch 
of  ignorant  fingers  would  destroy  the  beautiful  accumu- 
lators of  the  things  that  are  to  be  preserved.  The  fin- 


40  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

gers  must  be  educated,  they  must  be  taught  respect, 
taught,  too,  to  see  and  to  hear.  Will  they  ever  under- 
stand the  language  of  the  trees,  the  work  of  the  sap? 
Why  not? 

Following  Helen  Keller's  suggestion,  I  held  the  palms 
of  my  hands  out  to  the  rays  of  the  sun.  I  had  a  de- 
lightful sensation  of  their  vital  warmth,  which  is  unlike 
anything  else.  I  felt,  it  mounting  in  waves  through  my 
veins  and  arteries.  I  realised  their  action  on  the  vege- 
table kingdom.  I  understood  how  the  things  in  this 
kingdom  might  die  through  this  very  force.  I  under- 
stood the  thirst  of  the  desert,  the  cracked  earth,  the 
weariness  of  plants  towards  the  evening  time  of  a  fine 
day.  From  henceforth  I  shall  appreciate  the  clouds 
which  give  them  a  little  repose. 

What  the  writer  of  "  Sense  and  Sensibility  "  reveals 
to  us  about  human  odour  may  open  a  whole  field  of 
study  and  speculation  to  physiologists  and  psycholo- 
gists. Are  these  impressions  of  hers  about  a  cultivated 
sense  of  smell  real  or  are  they  only  an  effect  of  her 
imagination?  I  do  not  think  so.  We  have,  each  one 
of  us,  a  special  atmosphere.  This  atmosphere,  which 
our  radiations  are  constantly  creating  and  renewing, 
isolates  or  groups  us,  it  provokes  sympathies  or  antipa- 
thies, affinities  or  enmities  and  it  has  a  radiation,  the 
extent  of  which  we  cannot  conceive. 

The  dog,  for  instance,  feels  this  human  atmosphere. 
It  attracts  him  irresistibly,  he  loves  it  and  he  cannot  be 
happy  outside  it.  When  scientific  men  have  learnt  to 
register  and  analyse  it,  it  will  probably  reveal  to  them 
a  chemistry  that  will  astound  them.  I  fancy  that  kind- 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  41 

hearted,  ordinary  sort  of  people  must  have  a  sweet 
odour  and  that  intelligent,  healthy,  good  people  must 
have  an  aromatic  odour.  As  to  the  idealists,  they  must 
have  an  extraordinarily  complex  chemistry.  Their 
odour  must  be  a  mixture  of  lilies,  tube-roses,  musk, 
amber  and  benzoin. 

However  that  may  be,  I  should  be  more  afraid  of  the 
judgment  of  Helen  Keller's  fingers  and  of  her  olfactory 
nerve  than  of  the  eyes  of  those  who  see.  I  can  very 
well  understand  the  grief  she  felt  the  day  when  she  lost 
her  sense  of  smell,  "  one  of  her  guides,"  and  also  her 
"  jump  of  joy  "  when  it  came  back  again  to  her,  as  I 
have  experienced  the  same  thing.  An  attack  of  influ- 
enza once  took  away  my  sense  of  smell,  quite  suddenly, 
and  I  was  without  it  for  two  years.  I  felt  the  most 
ridiculous  humiliation.  It  seemed  to  me  that  something 
of  me  was  already  dead.  Out  of  stupid  vanity,  I  would 
not  own  to  it  to  my  friends,  and  they  continued  send- 
ing me  sweet-smelling  flowers,  little  thinking  that  they 
were  adding  to  my  grief.  In  spite  of  their  beauty  of 
form  and  colour,  those  flowers  were  simply  odious  to  me. 
One  day  in  a  fit  of  anger  unbecoming  to  my  age  I 
threw  a  magnificent  bunch  of  fresh  irises  away.  I  regret 
it  to  this  day,  for  it  was  so  stupid  and  bad  of  me.  I 
had  to  go  through  two  Springs  in  this  way,  sniffing, 
in  despair,  for  the  scent  from  the  green  young  leaves 
of  hedges  in  flower  and  from  the  blossom  on  the  acacia- 
trees.  I  continued  smelling  all  the  flowers  and  crush- 
ing any  aromatic  herbs  in  my  hand.  It  was  all  to  no 
purpose  as  there  was  no  scent  for  me  and  this  privation 
was  most  cruel.  One  day,  as  I  was  writing,  a  whiff  of 


42  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

perfume  from  a  bunch  of  pinky  white  carnations  on 
my  table  came  to  me.  I  turned  red  with  emotion  and 
my  hands  trembled  as  I  lifted  the  flowers  to  my  nos- 
trils. It  was  no  illusion,  I  could  smell  them  faintly,  but, 
at  any  rate,  my  sense  of  smell  was  not  dead.  It  only 
came  back  to  me  very  gradually.  I  could  not  catch  the 
full  scent  of  certain  flowers  and  that  of  red  roses  was 
quite  disagreeable  to  me  at  first.  Remembering  what  it 
really  should  be,  I  realised  what  notes  were  lacking  in 
its  chromatic  scale.  At  present,  I  am  thankful  to  say, 
nothing  escapes  me.  I  get  the  sweet  smell  of  the  yel- 
low primrose  just  as  well  as  the  subtle  perfume  of  the 
lily.  I  can  even  distinguish  certain  shades  of  perfume 
which  I  never  used  to  notice.  It  is  not  that  my  sense 
of  smell  is  really  keener,  but  that  I  know  how  to  use  it, 
and  I  am  so  afraid  of  losing  it  again  that  I  am  con- 
stantly exercising  it.  This  little  experience  shows  that 
we  do  not  know  the  force  and  the  resources  of  our 
motive  power. 

We  exercise  our  muscles,  but  we  do  not  take  care  of 
the  machinery  which  puts  us  into  communication  with 
Nature  and  with  our  fellow-creatures.  Each  one  of 
our  senses  ought  to  be  specially  cared  for,  so  that,  if 
necessary,  it  could  help  or  take  the  place  of  another 
one.  At  the  age  when,  as  simple  folk  say,  people  "  are 
only  fit  to  be  buried,"  I  increased  my  sensorial  force  by 
training  my  thought- power.  I  increased  it  to  such  a 
degree  that  I  could  afford  to  pity  young  people.  We 
need  another  great  Initiator  who  would  place  our  fin- 
gers on  the  lips  of  the  goddess  Isis  ...  of  Nature, 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  43 

and  teach  us  to  read  them  just  as  Miss  Sullivan  taught 
the  little  blind,  deaf  girl  to  read  human  lips.  But 
after  all,  is  not  this  what  our  men  of  science  are  doing? 
Are  they  not  spelling  for  us,  in  our  hands,  the  secrets 
which  the  gods  have  spelt  to  them  in  theirs?  These 
secrets  are  necessary  for  our  progress.  And  how  many 
they  have  revealed  to  us  during  the  last  few  years! 
They  have  enabled  us  to  leave  our  planet  and  to  move 
about  in  the  air.  They  have  worked  with  us  in  manu- 
facturing those  wings  of  which  men  have  so  often 
dreamed  whilst  working,  and  even  whilst  sleeping.  One 
of  these  days  they  will  put  us  into  communication  with 
the  Beyond.  Everywhere  people  are  searching  for  this, 
and  nowhere  more  seriously  than  in  America,  the  coun- 
try in  which  we  imagine  every  one  entirely  occupied 
with  trying  to  turn  all  things  into  dollars.  In  the 
great  Universities,  the  psychical  question  is  the  question 
of  the  day.  The  soul,  auto-suggestion,  suggestion, 
telepathy,  and  all  the  phenomena  which  we  believed  to 
be  supernatural  are  now  being  studied  scientifically. 
An  attempt  is  being  made  to  develop  mental  forces  by 
means  of  concentration  in  order  that  these  may  be  used 
for  the  cure  of  diseases.  Reviews  and  newspapers  are 
full  of  facts  which  would  have  made  our  grandmothers 
shudder.  There  is,  at  present,  an  extensive  metar 
physlcal  literature  which  has  become  thoroughly  seri- 
ous. After  seeing  how  a  human  soul,  imprisoned  as  it 
was  in  darkness  and  silence,  could  obtain  a  light  which 
is  more  powerful  than  our  daylight,  and  a  much  more 
complete  psychical  and  mental  vision  than  ours,  I  have 


44  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

no  doubt  whatever  that  we  shall  succeed  in  getting  out 
of  our  darkness  and  in  being  able  to  see  the  Invisible 
and  to  touch  the  Intangible. 

Was  it  not  providential  that  this  human  document 
on  **  Sense  and  Sensibility,"  which  came  to  me  from 
America,  should  arrive  just  as  I  was  setting  out  on  my 
last  cruise  in  search  of  the  Heart  of  Life?  It  has  re- 
vealed to  me  much  that  was  unknown  to  me,  as  regards 
the  power  of  the  Terrestrian,  this  poor  Terrestrian, 
who,  when  seen  in  a  crowd,  with  a  cap  on  his  head, 
looks  like  a  big  chrysanthemum !  This  revelation  was 
necessary  to  me  and  some  one  knew  that  it  was  neces- 
sary. This  time  it  was  the  blind  woman  spelling  on 
the  hand  of  the  woman  who  sees  and  the  woman  who 
sees  humbly  thanks  the  blind  woman. 


CHAPTER  III 

IT  is  not  only  books  that  are  sent  to  us,  but  people  too. 
Last  week  I  had  come  to  a  stop  in  my  book  and  a 
visitor  was  sent  to  me,  thanks  to  whom  I  was  able  to 
decide  on  my  next  chapter.  She  came  to  me  with  an 
introduction  from  an  acquaintance  I  met  at  the  hotel, 
who  has  just  undergone  a  serious  operation  at  the 
Catholic  clinique  of  Bois-Cerf. 

Every  time  that  a  fresh  person  comes  to  me  with  an 
introduction  in  this  way,  I  growl,  like  an  old  tired-out 
dog.  When  the  introduction  is  from  a  person  who  is 
ill,  and  particularly  from  one  who  has  undergone  an 
operation,  I  give  in,  not  so  much  from  natural  kindli- 
ness as  out  of  pity  and  admiration  for  any  one  who  has 
had  the  courage  to  face  the  surgeon's  knife.  I  there- 
fore received  my  visitor  as  pleasantly  as  I  could. 
Whilst  she  was  making  her  excuses  for  coming  to  see 
me  in  this  way,  and  giving  me  news  of  her  friend,  I 
examined  her  with  curiosity.  I  felt  drawn  towards  her 
at  once.  She  was  tall,  her  figure  was  still  elegant  and 
she  was  wearing  the  mourning  of  an  English  widow,  a 
nun's  veil  falling  to  her  waist  and  a  Marie  Stuart  border 
of  white  crepe  in  her  little  bonnet.  Her  thick  hair  was 
turning  grey,  and  her  delightfully  ugly,  and  rather 
bull-dog  face,  was  lighted  up  by  magnificent  dark  eyes 
and  by  dazzlingly  white  teeth  in  perfect  condition.  She 

gave  me  an  impression  of  intelligence,  of  strong  will 

45 


46  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

and  of  passion  that  had  been  lived.  As  I  expected  she 
went  straight  to  the  point  immediately. 

"  It  is  not  out  of  curiosity  that  I  wanted  to  see  you," 
she  said,  rather  nervously.  "  I  really  needed  to  come 
and  talk  to  you." 

"  Well  then,  let  us  begin  at  once,"  I  said,  all  the 
more  graciously  as  I  foresaw  that  I  was  about  to  have 
a  confession. 

"  Your  books  delight  me  and,  at  the  same  time,  they 
exasperate  me,"  she  began.  "  They  delight  me,  because 
I  find  a  quantity  of  my  own  ideas  and  feelings  in 
them." 

She  saw  the  smile  which  I  could  not  repress. 

"Very  human,  is  it  not?"  she  asked. 

I  nodded  my  head  and  she  continued. 

"  Their  optimism  exasperates  me  though,"  said 

Madame  B .  "  Probably  this  is  because  I  do  not 

share  it,"  she  added,  with  a  shade  of  irony  in  her  voice. 
"  Optimism  in  a  young  woman  is  natural,  but  I  was 
told  that  you  were  a  woman  of  a  certain  age  — 

"  That  is  very  polite,"  I  said,  laughing ;  "  my  age  is 
only  too  certain.  You  see  for  yourself  that  I  am  old 
and,  nevertheless,  my  optimism  is  quite  sincere." 

"  You  have  been  very  happy  then." 

"  Happy?  All  I  can  say  is  that  the  supreme  Fabri- 
cator, in  tracing  out  my  destiny,  like  that  of  so  many 
others,  seems  to  have  endeavoured  to  go  against  all  my 
hereditary  instincts,  all  my  tastes  and  all  my  ambitions. 
Ah,  how  they  have  suffered  and  protested,  all  these  in- 
stincts, these  tastes,  these  ambitions !  At  present,  I  am 
obliged  to  recognise  that  this  hard  treatment  was  neces- 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  47 

sary  for  the  intellectual  development  which  has  made  my 
old  age  endurable." 

"  You  might  say  enviable." 

"  Oh,  no,  endurable.  That  is  a  great  deal  for  old 
age.  If  I  had  been  consulted,  I  should  have  preferred 
being  happy  when  I  was  young.  This  would  have  been 
unwise,  perhaps.  Then,  too,  you  must  not  imagine 
that  I  live  in  an  ivory  tower,  or  that,  like  so  many 
optimists,  I  am  resigned  to  the  sufferings  of  other  peo- 
ple. I  am  so  conscious  of  animal  and  human  suffering 
that  I  feel  it  myself  magnetically.  A  Frenchman,  who 
writes  as  Paul  Wenz,  made  me  shudder  to  my  very 
marrow  by  describing  the  horrors  of  two  years  of 
drought  in  the  Australian  bush,  where  he  was  stationed. 
I  cannot  even  write  the  details;  they  are  like  a  night- 
mare. It  is  very  difficult  to  me  to  forgive  the  misery 
inflicted  on  certain  good  creatures  which  are  quite  de- 
fenceless. It  is  more  difficult  still  to  understand  why 
so  many  others,  who  would  have  developed  magnificently 
with  just  a  few  rays  of  sunshine,  have  been  planted  on 
the  shady  side  of  life  and  have  withered  away  and  died. 
I  should  be  tempted  to  cry  out  continually  against  the 
injustice  of  things,  if  I  did  not  know  that  we  always 
exaggerate  the  effect  of  these  ills." 

"  Are  you  sure  of  that  ?  " 

"  Yes,  for,  considering  circumstances,  I  ought  to  have 
suffered  much  more  than  I  have  done.  The  state  of 
grace  given  us  is  one  of  our  greatest  blessings.  It 
is  one  of  the  forces  of  Nature.  It  creates  a  force, 
thanks  to  which  adverse  forces  are  attenuated  or  even 
annihilated.  Then  too,  this  is  given  to  us  all." 


48  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

"  Yes,  there  is  no  denying  that !  " 

"  Then,"  I  continued,  "  the  whole  of  Life  is  not  just 
in  the  dramas  of  our  own  existence.  We  must  come 
out  of  ourselves,  look  at  Life  objectively,  in  its  various 
energies,  in  its  infinite  transformations  and  in  its  evo- 
lutions. We  must  admire  it  in  the  gradual  transfor- 
mation of  minerals  and  of  metals,  in  the  fecundation  of 
flowers,  in  the  creation  of  the  animal  and  of  man,  in 
the  weaving  of  their  destinies.  There  is,  in  all  this,  a 
revelation  of  beauty,  of  wisdom,  of  subtle  art  and  of 
forethought  which  reassures  us  and  compels  our  admira- 
tion. One  of  the  days  this  summer,  I  had  a  beautiful 
bunch  of  roses  on  my  table.  I  noticed  that  many  of 
the  leaves  were  cut  out  in  the  most  surprisingly  distinct 
way.  It  seemed  as  though  the  semi-circular  cutting- 
out  must  have  been  done  with  the  smallest  scissors.  I 
guessed  that  this  was  the  work  of  an  insect  and  I  won- 
dered what  insect?  For  the  thousandth  time,  I  blamed 
my  ignorance.  It  was  just  as  though  some  one  had 
heard  my  silent  question,  for,  the  following  week,  I  re- 
ceived an  American  magazine.  I  learnt  from  this  pub- 
lication that  the  insect  whose  work  had  puzzled  me  was 
a  wild  bee  named  Megachile,  which  makes  its  nest  in 
the  hollow  of  trees  and  this  nest  is  composed  of  rose 
leaves.  Nothing  less  than  this !  It  cuts  them  out  with 
its  mandibles  and  then,  with  its  head,  feet  and  abdomen, 
it  makes  them  into  a  kind  of  tube  with  cells.  In  each 
cell  of  this  royal  little  cradle,  it  places  an  egg  and  then 
the  food  of  the  larva  which  is  to  come  to  life.  This 
food  is  a  tiny  ball  of  '  bee's  bread,'  made  of  pollen  and 
honey  kneaded  together.  The  nest  sometimes  contains 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  49 

as  many  as  thirty  cells  and  requires  more  than  a  thou- 
sand flower  petals.  Is  not  that  adorable?  " 

"  It  certainly  is,"  agreed  Madame  R with  her 

eyes  slightly  misty. 

"  And  when  the  Megachile  has  given  all  the  life  that 
is  enclosed  within  its  ovaries,  it  dies." 

"  Oh,  that  is  just  the  cruelty  of  Nature." 

"  Yes,  but  then  it  has  had  love,  maternity  and  the 
glory  of  continuing  its  species.  Is  not  that  a  great 
deal  for  a  bee?  " 

"  It  would  be  a  great  deal  for  a  woman,"  answered 
my  visitor. 

"  It  dies  and  something  of  itself  will  live  again  with 
the  rose-leaves  that  it  has  collected.  The  thought  that 
created  all  that  must  be  of  feminine  essence  and  I  am 
sure  that  a  subtle  joy  must  have  been  given  to  the  wild 
bee  in  the  work  imposed  upon  it.  When  we  see  mar- 
vels of  this  kind,  we  must  be  convinced  that  those  who 
elaborate  them  are  neither  evil  nor  cruel." 

"  And  do  you  include  human  nature  in  your  admira- 
tion? "  asked  Madame  R in  a  harsh  tone  of  voice. 

"  What  do  you  call  human  nature  ?  " 

This  simple  question  seemed  to  disconcert  my  visitor. 

"  Unkindness,  ingratitude,  selfishness." 

"  And  also  kindness,  abnegation,  altruism,"  I  added. 

"  Yes,  but  in  much  smaller  quantities." 

"  In  much  larger  quantities,  I  assure  you,"  I  re- 
plied. "  Besides,  faults  and  qualities,  vices  and  virtues 
are  all  psychical  forces." 

"  Psychical  forces,  our  faults  and  our  qualities  ?  " 

"  Certainly.     Have  you  never  seen  them?  " 


50  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

"  Oh,  we  sec  them  without  seeing  them  and,  if  we  do 
not  see  them,  we  feel  them." 

"That  is  just  it,"  I  answered,  smiling.  "These 
forces  are  in  Nature,  they  form  part  of  the  Universal 
Soul.  They  are  incarnated  in  all  creatures,  in  the  in- 
sect which  has  only  two  cells,  as  well  as  in  the  man  who 
has  millions.  They  are  the  cards  with  which  the  game 
of  life  is  played.  There  are  some  which  are  big  trump 
cards,  there  are  others  which  make  us  win  or  lose  the 
game.  They  are  all  necessary,  though." 

"  Necessary?     All  of  them?  " 

"  In  order  to  be  convinced  of  this  we  have  only  to 
consider  the  immense  and  phenomenal  action  of  vanity. 
This  infinitely  small  thing,  the  manifestations  and 
schemes  of  which  appear  so  ridiculous  to  us  sometimes, 
is  one  of  the  most  important  agents  in  the  world.  It 
urges  on  all  the  energies.  It  is  to  be  found  every- 
where, and  in  everything,  in  religion,  in  politics,  in  love. 
It  helps  to  create  charitable  societies,  to  build  temples 
and  superb  monuments.  It  is  useful  and  it  does  not 
ask  for  much  payment  in  return,  as  it  is  satisfied  with 
words  and  honours,  even  with  posthumous  honours,  and 
it  accepts  all  false  coin.  The  *  Wheel  of  Things ' 
would  turn  too  slowly,  if  it  were  not  for  vanity, 
snobbism  and  ambition.  Then  too,  egoism,  which  con- 
centrates, leaves  room  for  generosity,  which  scatters 
abroad.  The  cruelty  of  one  person  excites  the  pity 
of  every  one.  Envy  is  the  necessary  stimulant  for 
many  people.  Hypocrisy  obliges  the  inferior  being  to 
behave  in  a  way  which  does  him  good.  Impiety,  lying 
and  injustice  bring  about  fine  reaction  sometimes.  I 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  51 

imagine  these  psychical  forces  as  so  many  differently 
coloured  waves.  It  seems  to  me  that  love,  friendship 
and  humanitarianism  must  be  remarkably  brilliant." 

"And  what  about  ingratitude?"  asked  Madame 
R  -  in  so  harsh  a  tone  that,  for  the  second  time,  I 
was  struck  by  it. 

"  Ingratitude  has  always  been  called  black  and  not 
without  reason,  as  black  absorbs  light  and  gives  none 
back.  Avarice  and  selfishness  always  seem  grey  to  me, 
and  jealousy  and  hatred  of  a  greenish  hue.  Joking 
apart,  though,  if  we  are  to  understand  the  role  of  these 
various  factors,  we  must  watch  their  work  patiently 
for  a  very  long  time.  But  you  see  the  difficulty  is  that 
we  dare  not  look  evil  in  the  face.  Some  people  con- 
sider it  their  duty  to  ignore  it,  and  others  delight  in 
playing  with  it.  We  ought  to  approach  it  with  re- 
spect." 

"Approach  evil  with  respect!"  exclaimed  Madame 


"  Yes,  because  it  is  a  primordial  force  and  we  ought 
to  work  for  its  evolution,  so  that  it  may  be  transformed 
into  good.  I  fancy  that  this  is  our  unique  raison 
d'etre  and  it  includes  all  the  other  reasons.  I  tried  for 
a  long  time  to  see  evil  and  good,  to  find  a  scientific  for- 
mula for  them  and,  finally,  I  hit  upon  one  that  satis- 
fies me." 

"  Ah,  do  tell  me  what  it  is,"  begged  my  visitor. 

"  Well,  my  idea  is  that  good  is  a  reactive  agent  which 
shows  up  the  presence  of  evil,  and  that  evil  is  a  reactive 
agent  which  shows  up  the  presence  of  good." 

Madame  R  -  repeated  my  words  slowly. 


52  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

"  But,"  she  began,  and  then,  her  face  suddenly  light- 
ing up,  she  added :  "  I  understand ;  I  understand  per- 
fectly well  what  you  mean.  It  is  moral  chemistry." 

"  Neither  more  nor  less,"  I  replied.  "  Man  is  a 
marvel:  I  have  more  and  more  admiration  and  respect 
for  him  every  day  of  my  life." 

*'  Oh,  Madame,  how  do  you  look  at  him  in  order  to 
arrive  at  this?" 

"I  look  at  him  objectively.  I  grant  you  that  this 
collaborator  with  Providence  is  not  much  to  look  at. 
Even  the  best  looking  one  is  not  very  beautiful.  There 
is  nothing  very  noble  about  the  most  worthy  specimen 
and  the  very  best  one  is  not  really  good,  but  such  as  he 
is,  he  represents  the  divine  work  of  millions  of  years. 
He  has  been  created  cell  by  cell,  segment  by  segment; 
he  is  the  synthesis  of  the  three  kingdoms  of  Nature. 
He  bears  within  him  the  past,  the  present  and  the  fu- 
ture. He  bears  within  him,  too,  the  secret  of  immor- 
tality. He  has  all  the  smallness  of  the  atom  and  all 
the  greatness  of  a  future  god.  Certain  savants  are 
straining  all  their  faculties  in  a  desperate  effort  to 
guess  what  the  inhabitant  of  Mars  can  be,  and  they  do 
not  even  try  to  find  out  what  the  inhabitant  of  this 
Earth  is." 

"  Yes,"  agreed  my  visitor,  smiling.  "  One  of  my 
cousins  spends  his  time  speculating  on  what  our  neigh- 
bours in  the  sky  are,  and  he  knows  so  little  about  his 
fellow-creatures  that  a  mere  child  could  dupe  him." 

"He  probably  disdains  the  study  of  mankind,  be- 
cause it  seems  too  easy  for  him.  In  reality,  there  is 
no  study  more  difficult,  and  more  impossible  even,  for 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  53 

man  is  an  individuality  forming  a  part  of  millions  of 
individuals.  In  olden  times  it  was  believed  that  the 
intellect  was  to  be  found  within  the  liver,  that  the  soul 
dwelt  within  the  heart,  the  mind  in  the  loins,  the  affec- 
tive emotions  in  the  intestines  and  the  conscient  part 
of  us  in  the  very  blood.  This  was  the  Jewish  belief. 
Not  until  last  century  did  the  physiologists  discover 
that  the  brain  is  the  seat  of  all  our  faculties." 

"  Do  you  mean  to  say  that  men  have  taken  so  long  to 
discover  that  they  think  with  their  brains?  Oh,  that 
really  is  remarkable,"  exclaimed  Madame  R . 

"  Their  sensations  deceived  them.  The  right  time 
for  that  discovery  had  not  arrived,  and  every  discovery 
serves  to  start  a  fresh  chapter  in  the  epopee  of  the 
Earth.  Then  too,  man,  having  been  created  last  will, 
perhaps,  be  the  last  to  be  known." 

"  That  is  very  probable." 

"  He  has  been  studied  metaphysically  before  being 
studied  physiologically,  so  that  he  has  remained  a  some- 
thing abstract  even  to  scientific  minds.  As  he  is  so 
little  known,  he  has  been  slandered  from  every  pulpit, 
and  from  every  public  platform.  Sincerely  or  insin- 
cerely, people  have  endeavoured  to  make  him  believe 
that  he  was  born  in  sin,  that  he  is  a  well  of  iniquity, 
evil  in  the  very  depths  of  his  soul.  This  is  not  true 
and  never  has  been  true.  Then,  too,  if  we  are  to  be 
just,  we  must  judge  him  merely  as  a  Terrestrian." 

"  Man  a  Terrestrian  ?  "  she  repeated  in  perplexity. 

"  Is  he  anything  else?  "  I  asked. 

"  No  —  you  can  call  him  that  — " 

"  It  is  not  that  I  merely  call  him  that.     The  inhabi- 


54  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

tant  of  the  Earth  is  an  Earth-dweller.  We  must  look 
at  man  in  this  objective  way,  if  we  are  to  understand 
his  role  here  below.  If  we  are  to  understand  that  he 
is  part  of  the  Universe,  we  must  realise  that  he  is  an 
accumulator." 

"  An  accumulator,  man  an  accumulator !  "  exclaimed 
my  visitor  in  a  scared  way  that  amused  me  immensely. 

"And  a  radiator,"  I  continued,  speaking  slowly,  in 
order  to  enjoy  the  effect  of  my  words.  "  He  is  a  re- 
ceiver too,  a  resonator,  a  transformer  and  a  trans- 
mitter. He  is  all  that." 

"Are  you  joking?  "  asked  my  visitor,  her  dark  eyes 
wide  open  in  surprise. 

"  Not  at  all.  You  understand  the  meaning  of  all 
those  terms,  do  you  not  ?  " 

"  Yes,  the  various  discoveries  of  recent  years  have 
made  them  all  more  or  less  familiar." 

"  And  all  these  discoveries  had  to  be  made,  so  that  we 
might  learn  to  know  the  true  functions  of  man.  He  is 
a  fighting  animal,  creation's  Dreadnought.  A  work- 
man accustomed  to  machinery,  or  to  electricity,  would 
be  able  to  understand  him  better  than  the  greatest 
physiologists  of  olden  times." 

"  I  am  afraid  I  do  not  quite  grasp  your  meaning," 

said  Madame  R ,  knitting  her  eyebrows  in  her  effort 

to  understand. 

"  You  do  not  grasp  my  meaning?  "  I  repeated.  "  Is 
not  the  body,  with  its  bones,  nerves,  muscles  and  blood, 
an  accumulator  of  physical  forces,  of  those  forces,  the 
exteriorisation  of  which  you  can  see  in  a  battery,  in  all 
work,  and  in  every  material  struggle?  " 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  55 

"  There  is  some  truth  in  that,"  admitted  Madame 


R- 


"  There  is  a  great  deal  of  truth  in  it,"  I  said.  "  Is 
not  the  brain,  with  its  millions  of  cells,  planted  like 
flowers  in  that  fertile  and  mysterious  grey  matter,  an 
accumulator  of  the  psychical  forces  which  we  call 
thoughts,  ideas  and  sentiments?  Is  it  not  an  accumu- 
lator of  innumerable  impressions,  pictures  and  memo- 
ries?" 

"  Why,  yes." 

"And  when,  in  one  form  or  another,  it  gives  these 
forces  back  to  Life,  does  it  not  become  a  radiator?  " 

"  Certainly." 

"And  is  not  man  a  receiver  of  the  ambient  radi- 
ations? These  are  by  no  means  agreeable  always. 
Certain  political  personages  seem  to  me  like  St.  Se- 
bastian. Certain  society  women  must  be  regular  pin- 
cushions. Do  you  understand  what  I  mean?  " 

"  Yes,  I  understand  quite  well." 

"  The  Terrestrian,"  I  continued,  "  is  a  resonator,  a 
sort  of  table  of  harmony,  which  receives  and  gives  out 
the  infinite  vibrations  of  the  visible  and  invisible  worlds. 
Besides  this,  he  is  a  transformer  and  a  wonderful  trans- 
former. With  the  various  aliments  he  makes  blood, 
nerves,  muscles,  bones,  tissues,  flesh,  caloric,  electricity 
and  what  not?  By  means  of  his  will-power  and  his 
thoughts  he  does  deeds.  To  sum  up  briefly,  he  trans- 
forms material  substance  into  immaterial  force,  and 
physical  force  into  psychical  force." 

"  It  is  impossible  to  deny  that." 

"  He  is  also  a  transmitter  of  life,  death,  health,  dis- 


56  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

ease,  joy  and  sorrow.  He  is  a  vehicle  of  ideas,  of  mes- 
sages, of  orders,  of  a  million  things  of  which  we  have 
not  jet  a  suspicion." 

"  I  see,"  said  Madame  R ,  who  had  gradually 

begun  to  comprehend. 

"  Poor  Terrestrian !  "  I  continued.  **  He  is  moved 
about  by  formidable  currents.  Awake  or  asleep,  he  is 
constantly  being  worked  upon  by  invisible  agents.  His 
movements  are  combined  with  those  of  beings  of  whose 
very  existence  he  is,  perhaps,  not  aware.  He  is  carry- 
ing about  within  himself  the  germs  of  his  own  destruc- 
tion, hidden  enemies  which  compel  him  to  keep  up  a 
constant  warfare.  In  his  brain,  the  phenomenon  of 
mirages  is  constantly  taking  place.  This  auto-mirage 
may  be  wealth,  honours,  or  a  religious,  artistic,  or  scien- 
tific ideal.  In  order  to  attain  what  he  thinks  he  sees, 
he  walks  day  and  night,  he  springs  over  obstacles, 
overturns  or  crushes  all  that  opposes  him,  and  then, 
when  he  actually  grasps  it,  he  says :  *  Was  this  all  ?  ' 
And  yet,  in  pursuing  his  chimera,  which  was  his  des- 
tiny, he  was  helping  in  the  divine  work,  which  is  his 
work  too.  When  one  realises  all  this,  one  must  feel 
profound  admiration  for  man,  no  matter  on  which  step 
of  the  ladder  he  is  placed,  and  also  a  tenderness  and 
pity  which  will  lead  us  on  to  the  true  humanitarianism." 

"  But,"  objected  my  visitor,  "  man  appears  to  you 
like  a  machine." 

'*  Yes,"  I  replied,  "  like  an  automobile,  every  molecule 
and  every  organ  of  which  contains  soul  and  gives  out 
soul.  He  is  like  a  machine  animated  by  the  Spirit  of 
God,  by  *  the  Spirit  that  moved  upon  the  waters.' 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  57 

I  have  realised  that  the  human  head  is  a  motor,  the 
power  of  which  can  be  increased  or  lessened,  the  ma- 
chinery improved  or  damaged,  a  motor  on  which  in- 
numerable forces  are  at  work.  I  frequently  say  to 
myself : '  This  one  is  only  a  poor  little  five  horse-power  ' 
or  '  That  one  is  a  forty  horse-power.'  When  I  hap- 
pen to  come  across  one  that  is  a  hundred  horse-power, 
I  hover  round  it  mentally,  with  an  admiration  that  does 
me  good.  I  must  own,  though,  that  I  do  not  often 
meet  with  one  of  these  on  my  path." 

"  Without  fishing  for  compliments,  what  should  you 
think  I  represent  ?  "  asked  Madame  R . 

"  A  fifteen  horse-power  which  might  become  a  twen- 
ty-five." 

"  I  am  glad  to  hear  that.  I  have  an  auto  of  that 
force  and  it  gets  over  a  great  deal  of  ground." 

"  The  first  time  that  human  heads  appeared  to  me 
like  so  many  living  motors,  I  was  at  the  theatre,  and 
the  idea  of  these  heads,  bald  or  covered  with  hair,  as 
motors,  made  me  shake  with  laughter.  On  thinking 
this  over,  I  began  to  realise  what  was  really  taking  place 
under  these  craniums  and  I  was  deeply  touched." 

"  Then  you  look  at  people  and  things  within  them- 
selves, as  though  you  are  looking  in  a  mirror." 

"  Yes." 

"  And  that  is  what  you  mean  by  looking  at  them 
objectively?  " 

"  Yes." 

"I  know  the  meaning  of  the  word  objective,  but  I 
had  never  understood  just  what  it  signified,  or  how  to 
apply  it." 


68  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

"  Well,  you  would  find  that  this  objective  observa- 
tion, at  your  age,  might  become  an  exhaustless  source 
of  interest.  You  should  train  your  mind  to  this  kind 
of  observation." 

"  So  that  I  may  become  a  twenty-five  horse-power?  " 

"  So  that  you  may  see  more  and  see  with  greater 
clearness,  and  so  that  you  may  learn  to  reflect.  There 
are  so  few  people  who  have  any  idea  of  the  real  pleas- 
ure that  this  kind  of  working  of  the  mind  gives.  So- 
called  orthodox  people  do  not  think,  because  they  be- 
lieve they  have  no  right  to  do  so,  and  free-thinkers 
take  advantage  of  their  freedom  for  not  thinking  at  all." 

"  That  is  quite  true,"  said  Madame  R ,  laughing. 

"  There  are  so  many  discoveries  now-a-days,"  I  con- 
tinued, "  of  forces  of  which  we  had  no  idea,  that  people 
will  soon  be  obliged  to  reflect,  and  they  will  then  realise 
the  fact  that  free-will  is  an  impossible  idea." 

"Free-will!  Ah,  that  is  just  what  I  wanted  to  dis- 
cuss with  you.  My  husband  was  a  thinker  and  he  did 
not  believe  in  it,  but  there  were  so  many  tilings  in  whicH 
he  no  longer  believed  that  I  could  not  trust  to  him.  I 
was  wrong,  perhaps.  Hereditary  beliefs,  that  date  so 
far  back,  become  a  sort  of  habit  of  mind  with  us." 

"  Yes,  nineteen  persons  out  of  twenty  confuse  the 
divine  will  with  the  old  fatalism  and  say,  in  the  most 
inapt  way,  that  if  they  are  not  free  they  have  only  to 
fold  their  arms  and  let  things  take  their  course.  It  is 
just  because  we  are  not  free  that  we  cannot  fold  our 
arms.  We  have  every  one  of  us  been  created  for  the 
sake  of  doing  something,  and  that  something  is  neces- 
sary for  the  harmony,  not  only  of  this  world  of  ours, 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  59 

but  for  the  harmony  of  the  whole  Universe.  Fatalism 
cannot  exist  in  Nature.  We  all  of  us  die  killed,  in  one 
way  or  another,  but  you  may  be  quite  sure  that  no 
death  is  the  result  of  chance.  You  have  only  to  re- 
flect that  the  present  always  prepares  the  future.  As 
we  do  not  know  what  the  future  is  to  be,  how  could  we 
prepare  it?  " 

"  Ah,"  said  my  visitor,  "  if  you  only  knew  how  much 
I  need  to  believe  that  things  are  determined  beforehand." 

"  You  can  very  well  believe  it.  Let  us  take  just  one 
proof  among  a  million.  You  know  the  influence  that 
temperature  has  upon  people,  upon  their  health,  their 
actions  and  even  upon  their  thoughts.  Well,  try  to 
make  the  barometer  or  the  thermometer  go  up  or  down. 
These  two  little  instruments  register  forces,  in  face  of 
which  the  whole  human  race  is  powerless.  That  ought 
to  suffice  for  proving  to  us  the  inanity  of  the  idea  of 
free-will." 

"  What  could  a  magistrate  reply  though,  if  a  crimi- 
nal pleaded  that  he  had  committed  theft,  or  even  mur- 
der, but  that  he  was  not  free,  as  he  had  not  made 
himself?" 

"  The  magistrate  could  only  reply  that  he,  too,  was 
not  free  to  pardon  the  offence.  The  man  had  broken 
the  higher  laws  which  govern  all  society,  and  the  magis- 
trate is  appointed  to  see  that  those  laws  are  respected. 
Those  whom  we  call  criminals  are  probably  the  unsound 
in  mind  or  body,  the  degenerates,  or  inferior  creatures, 
of  whom  Providence  makes  use  for  certain  of  its 
works." 

"  And  where  is  Divine  justice  to  be  found  then?  " 


60  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

"  In  the  state  of  grace  which  enables  the  unfortunates 
of  this  world  to  bear  their  sorrows,  in  the  forces  which 
enter  into  them,  in  the  evolution  and  the  reincarnations 
which  await  them  like  us." 

"  Ah,  you  believe  in  reincarnation  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  do,  certainly." 

"  I,  too." 

"  In  our  times,  now  that  we  have  a  little  light,  the 
attitude  of  those  who  are  with  condemned  prisoners  is 
quite  different  from  what  it  formerly  was.  The  priest 
kisses  them  and  the  lawyer  and  the  warder  shake  hands 
with  them.  They  grasp  the  very  hand  that  has  killed 
some  one.  All  that  is  good  in  them  comes  out.  This 
is  like  a  gleam  of  the  approaching  dawn  —  of  reincar- 
nation." 

"  Yes,  and  when  we  have  some  great  sorrow,  which 
seems  to  us  undeserved,  we  look  for  the  justice  of  God 
and  can  only  find  it  within  ourselves.  As  for  me,  I 
am  not  a  free-thinker,  but  a  free  believer.  There  is  a 
distinct  shade  between  the  two." 

"  There  is  a  whole  colour  even,"  I  said. 

"  Sometimes  I  wonder  whether  I  am  not  an  old  hypo- 
crite. I  have  not  what  is  known  as  faith,  as  that  is 
blind.  There  are  many  things  which  my  mind  can  no 
longer  accept,  but,  all  the  same,  on  account  of  my 
position  as  lady  of  the  manor,  I  am  obliged  to  act  as 
though  I  did  accept  everything.  I  go  to  Church  and 
am  a  member  of  the  Church." 

"  And  quite  right,  too,"  I  said.  "  People  of  humble 
class,  and  very  many  others  as  well,  only  see  God  inside 
the  Church.  If  you  did  not  go  to  the  services,  they 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  61 

would  imagine  that  you  did  not  believe  in  Him,  and  you 
would  be  encouraging  their  indifference  and,  perhaps, 
causing  them  to  begin  to  doubt.  We  can  go  to  any 
kind  of  divine  worship  without  the  slightest  hypocrisy, 
as  it  is  always  a  homage  to  God." 

"  I  am  glad  that  you  think  that,"  said  Madame 

R with  a  sigh  of  relief.  "  I  am  not  a  very  fervent 

Church  member.  Although  I  admire  the  liturgy,  I 
avoid  High  Mass  on  account  of  the  sermon.  Our 
priest  is  one  of  the  best  men  in  the  world,  but,  accord- 
ing to  him,  only  the  Church  and  her  dogmas  exist. 
He  says  nothing  to  our  peasants  of  what  he  ought  to 
say,  nothing  that  will  help  to  make  them  more  generous- 
minded  and  more  honest,  nothing  that  will  help  to  make 
their  lives  more  worthy,  and  that  irritates  me.  One 
Sunday,  I  happened  to  ask  my  cook  whether  there  had 
been  a  good  sermon.  She  had  just  come  back  from 
High  Mass. 

"  *  Oh,  nothing  very  special,5  she  answered.  '  The 
priest  explained  to  us  about  the  equality  of  the  three 
persons  of  the  Holy  Trinity.  It  seems  to  me,'  she 
added,  '  that  all  that  concerns  God  more  than  it  does 
us.'  " 

"  Ah,  the  common  sense  of  people  of  that  class ! "  I 
exclaimed. 

"  Yes,  indeed.  And  then,  by  way  of  commentary, 
my  worthy  Veronica  continued :  '  It  would  be  better 
to  teach  parents,  children  and  husbands  their  duty,  it 
seems  to  me.'  She  was  quite  right." 

"  Have  you  ever  spoken  to  your  priest  on  the  sub- 
ject of  reincarnation?  " 


62  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

"  Oh,  no.  I  often  invite  him  to  my  house  and  I 
should  not  like  to  spoil  his  pleasure." 

"  This  belief  has  always  existed  in  the  soul  of  the 
world.  We  have  heard  more  about  it  in  recent  years 
and  it  has  taken  a  more  scientific  form.  Besides,  it  is 
not  contrary  to  any  religion." 

"  Whilst  the  belief  in  non-free-will  is  absolute  hetero- 
doxy." 

**  I  am  not  so  sure  of  that.  Jesus,  for  instance, 
knew  that  he  was  doing  the  will  of  his  Father  and  not 
his  own  will." 

A  strange  expression  came  over  my  visitor's  face. 

"  If  we  were  really  not  free,  forgiveness  would  be 
more  easy.  We  might  even  love  our  enemies,"  she 
said,  as  though  speaking  to  herself.  Then,  suddenly 
remembering  me,  she  asked  abruptly :  "  Have  you 
ever  been  deceived  by  some  one  very  dear  to  you  ?  " 

"  No,  never,"  I  answered. 

"  Ah,  then  you  do  not  know  what  grief  is." 

"  Oh,  yes,  indeed  I  do.  There  is  a  fine  collection  of 
miseries  in  this  world  and  I  can  answer  for  it  that  I 
have  had  my  share  of  them." 

"  Well,  then,  I  will  tell  you  my  story,"  said  Madame 

R ,  clenching  the  little  handkerchief  nervously  that 

she  was  holding.  "  When  I  was  twenty-five  I  married 
a  man  with  whom  I  was  passionately  in  love,  a  man 
whom  I  still  love  and  who  was  devoted  to  me  up  to  the 
very  last.  We  should  have  been  too  happy,  if  we  had 
only  had  children.  My  husband  was  a  widower  when  I 
married  him,  and  he  had  a  little  son,  of  six  years  old, 
who  was  his  living  image.  That  alone  would  have  made 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  63 

me  love  the  child,  even  if  I  had  not  had  a  strong  ma- 
ternal instinct." 

Madame  R was  silent  for  a  minute.  She  then 

continued  brusquely,  in  an  aggressive  tone  that  was 
almost  comic :  "  Can  you  tell  me  why  Nature  gives 
the  maternal  instinct  to  women  who  have  no  children? 
Then,  too,  why  are  children  sent  to  women  who  only 
kill  them?" 

"  Because  struggle  is  necessary  in  order  that  Life 
may  be  engendered,  and  also  for  its  very  alimentation." 

A  little  mocking  smile  came  to  my  visitor's  face. 

"  I  wonder  what  Providence  gives  you  in  return  for 
the  way  you  take  up  the  cudgels  in  its  defence?  "  she 
said. 

"  A  feeling  of  great  satisfaction,"  I  replied.  "  It  is 
much  more  agreeable  to  plead  for  Providence  than  for 
the  devil.  Our  tasks  on  earth  are  not  all  painful  ones. 
Yours,  for  instance,  must  have  given  you  a  great  deal 
of  joy." 

"  Yes,  by  way  of  preparation  for  a  great  sorrow," 

answered  Madame  R bitterly.  "  You  shall  judge 

for  yourself.  I  brought  up  my  husband's  son  just  as 
though  he  had  been  my  own.  There  was  no  merit  in 
this,  as  all  I  did  for  the  boy  seemed  to  me  as  though  it 
were  done  for  the  father.  When  I  rocked  him  to  sleep 
in  my  arms,  it  used  to  seem  to  me  as  though  it  were 
my  husband  as  a  child  once  more." 

My  visitor  stopped  again,  and  then  said  with  a  little 
embarrassment :  "  I  am  telling  you  everything,  you 
see,  but  it  is  so  that  you  may  understand  my  indigna- 
tion and  my  grief." 


64.  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

"  Yes,  and  I  admire  the  subtleness  of  that  sentiment 
which  allowed  you  to  revive  the  childhood  and  youth  of 
the  man  you  loved.  I  admire  all  this  as  a  novelist  and 
as  a  psychologist.  You  must  have  experienced  to  the 
full  the  delights  of  love.  You  must  now  accept  the 
other  side  of  it." 

"  No,  I  do  not  accept  it,"  replied  Madame  R 

with  sorrowful  hardness,  "  for  I  have  had  to  pay  too 
dearly  for  it.  I  devoted  myself,  body  and  soul,  to  that 
child.  He  had  inherited  dangerous  germs  from  his 
mother.  Thanks  to  all  my  care  and  to  the  precautions 
I  took,  he  developed  a  good  constitution.  The  doctor 
acknowledged  this.  I  began  to  study  again,  in  order 
to  help  him  in  his  studies,  and  I  coached  him  regularly 
with  his  home  lessons.  Heaven  only  knows  all  the  pa- 
tience and  all  the  little  ruses  it  needed  in  order  to  urge 
him  on.  He  passed  his  examinations  brilliantly,  and 
had  me  to  thank  for  it." 

"  But  he  must  have  been  very  fond  of  you,"  I 
said. 

"  I  thought  he  was.  My  friends  envied  me  and  I 
used  to  repeat  over  and  over  again,  with  the  greatest 
pride,  that  stupid  untrue  saying:  *  As  we  sow,  so  do 
we  reap.'  As  long  as  he  needed  me  I  was  his  '  beloved 
mother.'  There  was  *  no  other  mother  in  the  world 
like  me.'  He  had  a  whole  stock  of  pretty  phrases  for 
me.  And  then  —  he  married." 

"  Ah,"  I  said,  smiling. 

"Yes,  ah!"  repeated  Madame  R .  "He  took 

me  out  to  a  certain  dinner-party,  one  evening  that  my 
husband  happened  to  be  away.  He  met  a  very  young 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  65 

widow  and  fell  in  love  with  her  at  first  sight.  Six 
months  later  he  married  her.  She  was  very  fair,  with 
a  beautiful  complexion  and  good  colouring,  one  of 
those  women  who  can  do  what  they  like  with  even  the 
strongest  of  men.  During  the  first  year  of  his  mar- 
riage, my  step-son  used  to  run  in  every  morning  for  a 
few  minutes,  to  see  us.  He  seemed  to  like  coming  to 
the  old  home.  Then,  under  various  pretexts,  he  came 
less  often,  and  when  he  visited  us  at  our  country  house, 
his  stay  was  shorter  every  time.  His  father  was  rather 
hurt  at  this  and  I  tried  to  invent  excuses  for  his  son. 
All  the  same  it  did  hurt  my  husband's  feelings  and  I 
have  never  forgiven  that.  The  birth  of  the  first  child 
was  a  real  joy  to  me,  and  at  present  I  consider  that  joy 
idiotic.  I  felt  myself  a  grandmother  to  the  very 
depths  of  my  being.  When  I  went  to  choose  the  little 
garments  for  the  layette,  I  was  in  the  seventh  heaven. 
It  was  like  being  in  love  again.  My  maternal  instinct 
had  got  the  better  of  me  once  more." 
"  Yes,"  I  said,  "  and  at  a  critical  age." 

Madame  R looked  at  me  and  then,  colouring 

slightly,  she  said  meekly :     "  Possibly." 
"  And  very  naturally,"  I  added. 
"  Naturally,  oh,  no !     However  that  may  be,"  she 
continued,  "  the  child  was  a  fine  boy,  but  I  was  not  able 
to  see  much  of  him.     His  mother  managed  to  keep  me 
at  a  distance  from  his  cradle." 

"  Were  you  not  on  good  terms  with  her?  " 
"  I  cannot  exactly  say  that.     We  were  both  of  us 
too  well  educated  to  quarrel,  but  I  could  always  feel 
her  between  my  step-son  and  me." 


66  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

"  And  she,  very  likely,  felt  you  between  her  husband 
and  herself." 

"  My  conscience  is  perfectly  clear.  I  have  not  a 
single  word  or  deed,  injurious  to  her,  with  which  to 
reproach  myself." 

"  I  can  quite  believe  that,  but  all  the  same  you  have 
too  much  individuality  to  be  able  to  play  the  part  of 
the  mother-in-law  who  does  not  count.  She  was  prob- 
ably jealous  of  your  influence  over  the  man  you  had 
brought  up." 

"Yes,  that  was  just  it,  of  course;  and  so,  in  the 
most  perfidious  way,  she  managed  to  bring  about  a  defi- 
nite rupture.  My  dear  husband  died  suddenly,  four 
years  ago,"  she  continued,  in  a  broken  voice.  "  His 
son,  with  no  respect  for  my  grief,  which  he  knew  would 
be  intense,  and  for  my  feelings,  although  he  knew  me 
to  be  strictly  honourable,  had  the  seals  affixed  in  my 
home  on  the  advice  of  his  wife's  brother.  I  was  left 
with  six  pounds  of  ready  money  and  was  obliged  to 
borrow  from  a  friend.  He  went  to  law  about  his 
father's  will,  as  I  had  full  control  of  all  my  husband's 
property.  My  son-in-law  had  come  into  his  mother's 
fortune  on  attaining  his  majority,  so  that  he  was  in  a 
very  good  position.  I  won  three  law-suits  and,  after 
this,  on  meeting  him  one  day,  with  his  wife  under  the 
arcades  of  the  Rue  de  Rivoli,  he  passed  by  without 
taking  any  notice  of  me.  I  felt  my  heart  leap  within 
me,  and  I  almost  staggered  as  I  walked  along.  I  neither 
saw  nor  heard  anything  for  the  next  few  minutes.  Just 
think  what  it  meant !  I  had  been  cut  dead  by  the  man 
whom  I  had  cared  for  from  childhood,  whom  I  had 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  67 

nursed  through  illnesses,  at  whose  bedside  I  had  passed 
night  after  night !  " 

"  Alas,"  I  said,  "  your  step-son  is  evidently  a  weak 
man  and  weak  people  are  the  worst  kind  of  good  ones." 

"  Yes,  his  mother  was  a  mere  doll  and  he  has  in- 
herited her  character  — " 

Madame  R stopped  short  for  a  minute,  and  then 

continued :  "  Ah,  now  I  am  running  down  a  poor,  dead 
woman.  That  is  abominable!  You  see  what  the  re- 
membrance of  all  this  does  for  me.  If  I  could  believe 
absolutely  in  determinism,  things  would  seem  quite  dif- 
ferent. I  was  never  created  for  hatred  and  it  upsets 
me,  as  it  is  an  element  foreign  to  my  nature." 

"  Have  you  not  tried  some  form  of  diversion?  " 

**  One  of  our  modern  diversions  you  mean,  I  sup- 
pose? "  said  my  companion,  with  a  little  shrug  that  was 
very  French.  "  The  Red  Cross  Society,  dispensary 
work,  settlements?  Yes,  but  I  saw  so  many  things 
there  that  were  disappointing,  that  I  dropped  all  that. 
There  are  plenty  of  charitable  societies  in  our  country, 
but  they  come  to  an  end  just  as  easily  as  they  are 
started.  There  is  no  cohesion." 

"  You  must  remember,"  I  said,  "  that,  for  centuries, 
public  charity  has  been  in  the  hands  of  the  Church. 
Lay  people  want  to  take  it  up  now,  and  to  utilise  all 
the  new  forces  in  their  turn.  They  do  not  know  how 
to  go  about  it,  though,  as  it  needs  a  long  apprentice- 
ship. They  will  succeed  finally,  and  perhaps  a  real, 
intelligent,  well-thought-out  humanitarianism  will  be  the 
result  of  their  effort." 

"  Well,  I  went  back  to  Brittany  to  *  cultivate  my 


68  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

garden.'  My  husband  had  instilled  into  me  his  love  of 
Nature,  of  Mother  Earth.  He  managed  to  make  a 
good  farmer's  wife  out  of  the  ignorant,  frivolous  Pa- 
risian that  I  was  formerly.  With  the  help  of  the 
steward  whom  he  had  taught,  I  manage  our  Louvic 
estate  fairly  well.  I  continue  the  plantation  of  trees, 
which  he  began  years  ago  —  for  his  grandchildren.  It 
seems  to  me  all  the  time  as  though  I  were  working  with 
him.  I  am  also  sowing  more  seed  —  of  ingratitude  and 
future  sorrow.  Like  one  of  your  heroines,  I  am  bring- 
ing up  a  little  family  of  twelve  orphans:  six  boys  and 
six  girls.  I  am  helped  in  this  by  three  excellent  women, 
who  have  the  true  maternal  instinct  and  no  children  of 
their  own.  The  little  home  is  well  provided  for  and 
will  continue." 

A  sudden  inspiration  came  to  me. 

"  You  are  just  the  person  I  wanted  to  meet,"  I  ex- 
claimed. 

"  Really ! "  said  Madame  R ,  with  unfeigned 

pleasure. 

"  Have  you  noticed  that  I  speak  a  great  deal  about 
children  and  animals,  in  my  books?" 

"  Have  I  noticed  it?  Why,  that  is  just  what  at- 
tracted me ! " 

"  Well,  then,  I  will  now  confess  that  for  a  very,  very 
long  time  I  never  noticed  children.  I  am  ashamed  to 
say  it,  but  children  bored  me.  Of  late  years  my 
thoughts  have  turned  towards  them  in  the  most  curious 
way  and,  with  ever  increasing  indignation,  I  have  no- 
ticed how  little  parents  and  those  who  educate  children 
understand  them.  Thanks  to  this  lack  of  comprehen- 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  69 

sion  the  poor  little  ones  are  martyrs  every  day  of  their 
lives." 

"  Do  you  not  think  that  you  rather  exaggerate 
things?" 

"  No,  mothers  do  not  seem  to  know  instinctively  what 
their  little  ones  want.  They  do  not  recognise  the  cry 
of  hunger,  or  the  cry  of  suffering,  still  less  do  they  rec- 
ognise the  cry  by  means  of  which  Nature  is  preparing 
the  child's  lungs.  Mothers  neither  know  how  to  dress 
nor  how  to  feed  their  children." 

"  Ah,  there  I  agree.  In  Brittany,  infantile  mor- 
tality is  largely  due  to  ignorance.  Women  will  tell 
you  that  their  baby  is  only  six  months  old  and  that  it 
can  take  the  same  food  as  its  father  and  mother.  They 
consider  that  as  a  proof  of  great  prowess.  It  certain}^ 
is,  but  only  the  very  strong  children  survive  the  test.'' fe(|0 

"Last  summer,  in  the  hotel  where  I  was 
remember  seeing  a  tall,  beautiful  woman  hugging ,», 
year-old  child  frantically.     The  poor  little  tiring 
out,  struggled  out  of  her  arms  and  made  off^  jjJ. 
child  will  grow  up  heartless,'  she  said  to  me.  oiff 
not  bear  to  be  fondled.'     *I  should  think , 
always  fondle  him  like  that,'  I  replied. 
has    the   most   delicate   flesh   and 
You  simply  bruise  him  with  all  your  strength}* 
exclaimed  the  mother,  the  colour  coming  in^o0| 
as  she  gazed  at  me  in  amazement,  ' 
that.'     This  lack  of  comprehension^'  £  c^ntinu^,] 'Ms 
to  be  seen  with  regard  to  everything,.,p|hy^^caJ.jLn4{niQr,aL 
health,    character,    natural    gifts, •;  $ 
child  is  caressed  one  minute 


70  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

is  dragged  away  suddenly  from  his  games,  or  roused  out 
of  his  sleep.  He  is  taken  out  for  a  walk  when  he  needs 
rest  and  put  to  bed  when  he  wants  to  go  out.  The 
other  day  I  met  a  child  walking  along  half  asleep.  I 
came  very  near  stopping  the  mother  and  giving  her 
my  opinion." 

"  How  do  you  think  it  comes  about  that  Providence 
gives  to  animals  an  instinctive  knowledge  of  what  is 
necessary  for  its  young  and  withholds  this  knowledge 
from  mankind?"  asked  Madame  R . 

"  Probably  because  mankind  has  to  learn  to  know  the 
child,  in  order  to  learn  to  know  himself." 

"  Perhaps  that  is  it." 

"  Habit  blinds  a  mother  and  prevents  her  from  see- 
ing her  children.  I  have  only  known  one  who  could 
observe  them  objectively  and  judge  them  fairly.  She 
delighted  in  their  conversations  and  in  the  droll  ideas 
that  came  to  them.  Unfortunately,  the  father  had 
stuck  fast  in  the  ruts  of  bygone  centuries,  so  that  he 
spoilt  all  the  good  that  she  tried  to  do.  I  suppose  that, 
among  animals,  the  parents  always  agree." 

"  Let  us  hope  so,  indeed !  "  exclaimed  Madame  R — 
with  comic  fervour. 

"  Have  you  seen  many  children  with  really  joyful 
faces  ?  "  I  asked. 

Madame  R thought  for  a  moment  and  then  said, 

ruefully :     "  No,  I  do  not  think  I  have." 

"  I  have  seen  a  great  many  with  such  a  pathetic  ex- 
pression that  the  tears  have  come  to  my  eyes  and  that 
I  have  been  haunted  for  days.  Without  any  sentimen- 
tal exaggeration,  it  is  my  belief  that  the  child  and  the 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  71 

horse  are  the  two  creatures  in  this  world  which  are  the 
least  understood.  If  I  have  been  clear  enough  in  ex- 
plaining to  you  my  ideas  of  the  workings  of  our  motive 
power,  you  will  readily  understand  that  the  cells  of  the 
child  are  influenced  by  all  the  vibrations  of  those  of  the 
grown-up  persons  with  whom  it  lives.  I  am  only  sur- 
prised that  there  are  not  more  cases  of  brain  fever. 
Imagine  the  delights  of  a  child  who  is  blessed  with  a 
nervous  mother  or  an  irritable  father." 

"  I  can  imagine  them  only  too  well,"  said  Madame 
R ,  smiling. 

"  And  still  more  abominable  is  the  fact  that  badly 
paid  teachers  are  given  to  the  child,  teachers  who  are 
like  living  gramophones.  They  are  ill-fed  and  badly 
dressed  and  they  have  no  prestige  at  all.  Harassed  by 
other  work,  which  they  are  obliged  to1  do  in  order  to 
provide  for  the  needs  of  their  families,  they  have  neither 
time  to  think  nor  to  rest,  and  their  poor  pupils  are 
affected  by  their  worries  and  their  moods.  The  nation 
which  is  civilised  enough  to  know  what  the  child  really 
is,  will  pay  its  teachers,  not  in  a  republican  way,  but 
royally.  Their  salary  ought  to  be  higher  than  that 
of  deputies  or  even  of  senators.  That  would  be  jus- 
tice. Men  and  women  teachers  ought  to  wear  the 
insignia  of  magistrates.  This  would  increase  their 
prestige  and  prestige  is  necessary.  The  French  love 
their  children,  but  they  do  not  care  for  the  child.  I 
have  already  written  this  and  I  am  writing  it  again, 
as  there  are  some  truths  which  should  be  cried  aloud 
at  all  the  cross-roads.  Just  think  of  it,  two  hundred 
thousand  little  ones,  on  an  average,  are  given  over  to 


72  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

the  tender  mercy  of  public  charity,  and  two-thirds  die 
before  they  are  adults." 

"  Horrors !  "  exclaimed  Madame  R . 

"  Yes,  indeed,"  I  continued.  "  They  are  poor  human 
specimens,  I  know,  but  they  have  all  the  more  need  of 
being  cared  for  physically  and  morally.  Ridiculous 
prices  are  paid  to  the  foster-parents  and  the  poor  little 
ones  suffer  from  their  earliest  days.  Then,  some  two 
hundred  francs  a  month  are  given,  I  believe,  to  women- 
inspectors,  who  mean  well,  but  who  are  quite  ignorant 
and  who  are  constantly  being  duped." 

"  This  inspection  ought  to  be  done  gratuitously," 

said  Madame  R ,  "  by  charitable  women  of  the 

higher  or  middle  class.  There  are  plenty  of  women  who 
would  give  their  services,  if  they  were  asked.  The  fact 
is,  though,  that  in  all  this  public  charity,  those  who  ad- 
minister it  are  really  the  very  ones  who  are  receiving 
it." 

"  If  we  cared  for  the  child,"  I  continued,  "  we  should 
not  allow  all  these  poor  little  ones  to  be  handicapped 
by  the  name  of  charity  children.  We  ought  to  call 
them  *  wards  of  the  State.'  Does  not  the  State  mean 
the  people  at  present?  In  order  to  lessen  the  number 
of  secret  births  and  increase  the  birth  statistics,  mar- 
riage ought  to  be  facilitated  as  it  is  in  England  and 
America.  Without  any  publication  of  banns,  or  for- 
malities whatever,  every  ministerial  official  should  be 
empowered  to  unite  an  engaged  couple,  accompanied  by 
two  witnesses  and  producing  their  birth  certificates,  by 
way  of  proving  that  they  have  attained  the  age  which 
the  law  demands." 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  73 

"  Would  not  that  be  a  great  slight  on  paternal  and 
maternal  authority?  " 

"  No,  the  greater  number  of  young  people  will  al- 
ways respect  that.  Of  course,  I  know  that  a  large  num- 
ber of  young  couples  would  pay  dearly  for  their  rash- 
ness, but  the  product  of  their  rash  love  would  have  a 
name  and  the  protection  of  the  law." 

Madame  R smiled. 

"  Ah,  you  are  a  novel-writer,"  she  said,  "  and  you 
would  like  to  create  some  fresh  situations." 

"  No,  I  should  like  to  think  that  there  would  be  less 
deserted  children  and  more  French  men  and  women.  It 
would  be  a  way  to  make  French  people  lose  that  fear 
for  the  future  which  no  other  nation  has  to  such  a  de- 
gree. It  is  just  this  fear  which  is  one  of  the  great 
causes  of  the  depopulation  which  humiliates  us.  When 
I  see  how  little  we  understand  the  education  of  the 
child,  I  dare  not  regret  the  depopulation  though." 

"  Oh ! "  said  my  visitor,  with  a  whole  world  of  re- 
proach in  her  tone. 

"  No ;  for  the  child,  which  might  be  such  a  magnifi- 
cent medium  for  conciliation  and  emulation,  is  the  vic- 
tim of  our  religious  and  political  dissensions.  In  the 
voluntary  schools,  for  instance,  there  is  a  religious  pa- 
ternity and  maternity,  which  is  both  good  and  necessary 
for  certain  natures.  Parents  who  are  in  any  way  de- 
pendent on  the  government  dare  not  send  their  children 
to  these  schools.  Such  tyranny  is  revolting  and  unin- 
telligent. We  have  neither  Christianity  nor  patriotism. 
The  result  of  all  this  is,  that  when  our  future  citizens 
leave  school,  instead  of  playing  together,  they  look  at 


74  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

each  other  like  snarling  bulldogs  and  exchange  uncom- 
plimentary epithets,  treating  each  other  respectively  as 
*  godless  heathen '  or  as  '  priest-ridden  bigots.'  And 
this  is  the  way  in  which  fraternity  is  implanted  in  the 
hearts  and  minds  of  our  new-comers  in  this  world. 
This  hostility  will  gradually  increase  and  will  create 
the  division  which  weakens.  And  whilst  the  sheep-dogs 
are  fighting  with  each  other,  the  wolves  have  a  good 
time." 

"  Do  you  not  think  it  would  be  a  good  thing  if 
women  had  a  voice  in  public  affairs  ?  " 

"  They  are  not  yet  prepared  for  it.  If  they  had 
presented  themselves  to  Parliament  with  a  Mothers'  pro- 
gramme, Parliament  would  have  opened  its  doors  to 
them,  but  they  are  incapable  of  drawing  such  a  pro- 
gramme up.  And  believe  me,  it  is  the  Latin  mother 
who,  with  her  ignorance,  her  unintelligent  love  and  her 
passionate  selfishness,  weakens  the  race." 

"  But  if  we  are  not  free,  it  must  be  that  Providence 
wills  that  the  child  should  suffer  and  be  misunderstood, 
that  parents  should  be  blind,  that  the  natality  of  our 
country  should  decrease.  Do  you  suppose  that  the  end 
of  our  race  is  written  *  on  the  wall '?  " 

"  I  hope  that  it  is  only  our  evolution  that  is  written 
there.  It  is  the  will  of  the  gods  that  we  should  live, 
and  that  will  has  created  the  struggle,  but  the  struggle 
is  gradually  becoming  more  intelligent.  For  some  years 
now,  people  have  been  thinking  about  the  child,  and  they 
are  now  beginning  to  have  a  certain  curiosity  about  all 
that  concerns  it.  I  am  told  that  a  naturalist,  who  is 
now  studying  snails,  has  about  fifteen  hundred.  lie  is 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  75 

anxious  to  discover  whether  they  are  blind.  That  is 
all  very  well  and  very  useful,  perhaps,  but  I  should  like 
the  child  to  be  studied  zoologically.  And  that  is  what 
I  wish  you  would  do." 

"  What  a  fine  idea !  "  exclaimed  my  visitor,  clasping 
her  well-gloved  hands  in  her  excitement,  whilst  a  flash 
of  joy  beautified  her  face.  "  Do  you  think  I  am  capa- 
ble though?  "  she  asked  doubtfully. 

"  I  am  sure  you  are.  You  have  been  prepared  for 
it.  You  have  twelve  subjects,  boys  and  girls.  That 
is  quite  enough  for  one  person.  Take  notes  of  their 
sex,  age,  and,  as  far  as  you  can,  of  their  atavism. 
Observe  the  shape  of  the  forehead  of  each  of  them,  the 
colour  of  the  eyes,  the  quality  of  the  hair,  for  the 
human  fleece  reveals  a  great  deal.  Then,  too,  notice 
the  form  of  the  ears  or  receivers,  the  shape  of  the  nails. 
Everything  is  of  importance  in  Nature  and  nothing  is 
left  to  chance.  Read  these  little  ones  like  so  many 
divine  manuscripts.  Observe  all  their  movements, 
whether  reflex  or  conscious,  and  try  to  discern  them. 
Watch  them  sleep,  work,  play,  eat,  and  pray.  I  shall 
be  very  much  surprised  if  you  do  not  find,  in  this  study, 
an  enormous  amount  of  interest  and  of  keen  pleasure." 

"And  what  am  I  to  do  with  these  notes?" 

"  Give  them  to  me,  so  that  I  may  make  use  of  them, 
and  then  I  will  send  them  on  to  London,  to  the  princi- 
pal of  an  institute  where  women  educators  are  being 
prepared  and  where  the  child  is  being  studied.  This 
principal  is  a  large-hearted  and  extremely  intelligent 
woman.  I  will  introduce  you  to  each  other  and  I  am 
sure  you  will  both  fall  in  love  at  first  sight." 


76  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

"  There  is  an  institute  in  Paris  where  nurses  are 
being  trained." 

"  A  French  mother  would  never  want  a  person  in  her 
house  who  knew  more  than  she  did,"  I  said,  laughing. 
"  I  once  asked  a  young  wife  why  she  did  not  have  an 
English  nurse  for  her  little  girl?  *  Oh,  no,'  she  ex- 
claimed, *  I  would  never  have  one  of  those  princesses  in 
my  house ! '  I  only  wish  that  the  government  organised 
courses  of  lessons  on  the  child  in  every  district,  rich 
and  poor  alike.  I  envy  you,"  I  added,  "  because  you 
still  have  time  to  study  children." 

"  I  should  never  have  thought  of  such  a  thing,"  said 
Madame  R ,  putting  her  hand  on  mine  and  press- 
ing it  warmly.  "  You  have  opened  out  a  fine  path  for 
me." 

"  You  had  to  come  to  me  for  me  to  point  it  out  to  you, 
and  I  am  very  proud  of  that  fact,"  I  said.  "  That  is 
a  very  good  illustration  for  you  of  Providential  work. 
You  will  not  be  long  before  you  will  be  ready  to  ac- 
knowledge that  the  ingratitude  of  your  son  has  served 
to  help  on  your  own  progress." 

"  If  I  admit  that  it  has  served  to  help  me  to  rise 
morally  it  certainly  lowers  him,  does  it  not?  How  do 
you  account  for  that?  " 

"  We  know  nothing  about  the  reactions  which  may 
take  place  in  his  mind.  Thanks  to  these,  he  may  realise 
all  that  he  owes  to  you." 

"  May  God  grant  that ! " 

"  When  I  think  of  you,  you  will  seem  much  greater 
to  me  among  your  little  orphans  than  if  I  saw  you 
merely  spoiling  your  grandchildren." 


77 

"  That  may  be,  but,  all  the  same,  I  have  no  near 
relatives  and,  as  I  am  alone  in  the  world,  it  seemed  to 
me  that  I  had  a  right  to  expect  my  share  of  family 
happiness.  Do  not  let  us  say  any  more  about  that, 
though.  If  I  go  on  pitying  myself,  it  would  seem  un- 
grateful to  Providence  and  to  you.  I  want  to  ask  you 
one  thing,  though.  Will  you  promise  to  come  and  see 
me  at  Louvic  and  stay  with  me  a  little  time?  " 

"  With  pleasure,"  I  answered ;  "  if  I  am  spared." 

"  Thank  you  for  the  promise.  You  must  see  my 
human  specimens  and  tell  me  whether  my  zoological 
studies  are  satisfactory." 

My  visitor  glanced  at  my  little  exercise  books  lying 
on  the  table.  "  I  am  ashamed  of  having  interrupted 
your  work,"  she  began. 

"  On  the  contrary,  you  have  helped  me,"  I  replied, 
smiling. 

"  I  have  helped  you?  " 

"  Yes,  you  were  sent  to  me,  for  you  began  to  speak 
about  a  subject  that  I  was  thinking  over.  You  came 
to  me  in  a  furious  state  of  mind.  Your  pessimism 
brought  my  optimism  to  the  surface  and  helped  me  to 
develop  it.  If  you  will  allow  me,  I  should  like  to  make 
use  of  this  conversation,  quite  anonymous!}*,  of  course." 

"  Do  so,  by  all  means,"  assented  my  visitor. 

"You  see,  I  am  not  a  Montaigne  and  it  would  be 
very  difficult  for  me  to  write  an  essay  giving  the  gist 
of  all  this.  Then,  too,  in  my  opinion  essays  are  not 
sufficiently  living.  It  is  my  good  fortune  to  have  a 
friend  who  is  quite  sincere,  whose  judgment  I  con- 
sider sure.  I  read  what  I  write  to  her  and  I  feel,  mag- 


78  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

netically,  whether  she  thinks  it  good  or  bad.  When  I 
come  to  the  dialogues,  she  leans  forward,  with  an  in- 
stinctive movement  of  approval,  which  seems  to  be  inter- 
preted to  me  by  the  very  feather  in  her  hat.  I  conclude 
that  I  am  better  in  dialogue  and  I  wanted  to  be  better 
in  this  chapter." 

My  visitor  laughed  heartily,  showing  all  her  beauti- 
ful teeth. 

"  What  a  curious  author  you  are,"  she  said ;  "  you 
are  not  at  all  afraid  of  showing  your  literary  strings." 

"  No,  for  the  most  interesting  thing  in  a  book  is  the 
way  in  which  it  is  made." 

"  Well,  that  certainly  is  objectivism,  if  I  am  not  very 
much  mistaken.  I  am  going  to  train  myself  to  look  at 
things  in  this  way,  if  only  in  order  to  discover  the 

beauty  of  ugliness,'*  said  Madame  R ,  as  she  rose 

to  take  leave. 

'*  You  will  then  have  discovered  a  very  great  thing," 
I  said.  I  held  out  my  hand  to  her  and  she  raised  it  to 
her  lips. 

"  Remember,  I  have  your  promise,"  she  said,  still 
holding  my  hand.  "  You  are  coming  to  Louvic.  You 
have  sown  the  seed;  you  must  come  and  see  it  sprout- 
ing." 

I  nodded  without  speaking.  A  kind  of  superstitious 
fear  prevents  me  now  from  making  any  plans  or  giving 
a  verbal  promise. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  objective  vision  of  people  and  things  has  revealed, 
and  continues  to  reveal  to  me,  the  incommensurable 
greatness  of  our  atom  lives.  It  has  torn  me  away  from 
habit,  which  made  me  deaf  and  blind.  Every  instant 
I  see  the  wonderful  mechanism,  the  real  beauty  of  cer- 
tain familiar  acts,  the  grandeur  and  mystery  of  which 
frequently  amaze  and  startle  me.  It  seems  to  me  as 
though  I  see  them  for  the  first  time.  I  constantly  have 
the  sensation  of  something  quite  fresh  and  new  to  me. 
This  is  a  sensation  for  which  those  who  are  biases 
would  pay  a  great  price,  and  I  would  not  give  it  up  to 
them  for  millions  of  money.  At  the  post-office  of  the 
Rue  des  Capucines,  I  once  saw  a  work-girl  receive  a  let- 
ter at  the  poste  restante  department.  She  looked  about 
twenty  years  of  age  and  was  a  pretty  girl  with  rough, 
fair  hair.  She  was  wearing  a  black  dress,  which  was 
covered  with  white  threads.  She  did  not  open  in  an  ele- 
gant way  the  envelope  that  was  handed  to  her.  Her 
eager  fingers  tore  it  open  and  her  eyes  literally  drank 
in  the  contents.  Her  anaemic  face  flushed  pink,  her 
eyelids  trembled,  her  nostrils  quivered,  a  smile  hovered 
over  her  lips  and,  when  she  looked  up,  her  face  was  so 
fresh  and  radiant  that  she  might  have  just  absorbed 
some  magic  cordial.  I  was  so  struck  by  the  transfor- 
mation that  it  positively  thrilled  me.  Those  little  black 
letters,  which  looked  as  though  they  had  been  traced 

by  the  meanderings  of  some  insect,  contained  an  invisible 

79 


80  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

force  which,  like  a  ray  of  sunshine,  had  penetrated  the 
flesh  and  bones  of  this  human  face,  and  had  caused 
transfiguring  joy,  the  signs  of  which  I  had  just  seen. 
The  phenomenon  had,  up  to  then,  seemed  quite  com- 
monplace, but,  in  reality,  there  was  a  great  mystery 
lying  underneath  it !  It  was  I  who  was  commonplace ! 
Those  little  black  characters,  buried  in  the  depths  of 
the  girl's  pocket,  together  with  a  coarse  pocket-hand- 
kerchief, a  half-worn-out  thimble,  a  flat  purse,  would 
emit  a  divine  fluid"  which  would  touch  certain  cells  of 
her  brain,  making  her  indifferent  to  the  scolding  of 
her  mistress  and  to  all  the  worries  of  the  workroom, 
drawing  her  out  of  her  gangue  of  poverty  and  trans- 
porting her  into  a  heavenly  zone.  And  then,  the  day 
would  perhaps  come  when  these  same  little  black  letters 
would  lose  their  magic  and  become  less  precious  than 
the  coarse  handkerchief,  the  half-worn-out  thimble  and 
the  flat  purse,  and  there  would  be  nothing  but  black- 
ness in  the  heart  and  the  pocket  of  the  poor  work-girl. 

For  the  first  time  in  my  life,  I  had  realised  all  the 
strangeness  and  wonder  of  this  transmission  of  thought, 
love,  feelings  and  impressions,  by  handwriting,  and  I 
admired  it  all  most  sincerely. 

On  returning  to  my  hotel  by  the  Rue  d'Antin,  I  saw 
a  little  boy  seated  on  the  step  of  his  father's  shop.  He 
had  a  slate  on  his  knees  and,  with  his  tongue  against 
his  cheek,  after  the  manner  of  his  far  back  ancestor, 
perhaps,  he  was  giving  all  his  attention  to  forming  let- 
ters, such  as  those  of  which  I  had  just  witnessed  the 
power,  and  these  letters,  which  transmit  not  only  love, 
but  life,  now  seemed  to  me  as  sacred  as  those  of  a  divine 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  81 

rite.     This  is  what  I  call  becoming  conscious  of  things. 

All  this  led  my  thoughts  in  the  direction  of  that 
phenomenon  which  we  call  literature.  We  produce 
literature  and  do  not  know  by  what  mechanism.  It 
comes  from  us  and  escapes  our  senses  in  just  the  same 
way  as  the  perfume  would  escape  from  the  flower  if  that 
could  see.  Nothing  seems  to  me  more  mysterious,  and, 
by  dint  of  thinking  it  out,  I  have  arrived  at  a  concep- 
tion which  is,  perhaps,  absurd,  but  I  will  give  it.  Many 
persons  have  to  blunder  along  before  one  really  finds 
the  truth. 

Like  us,  the  Earth  has  a  body  and  soul  so  closely 
united  that  it  is  impossible  to  know  where  the  one  ends 
and  the  other  begins.  Its  body  is  an  agglomeration  of 
numberless  molecules  and  cellules,  animated  by  that  ab- 
solutely unknown  force,  which  we  call  vital  force,  and 
which  is  undoubtedly  the  radio-activity  of  the  Eternal 
God.  These  molecules  and  these  cellules  incarnate  a 
portion  of  the  physical  and  psychical  forces  of  the 
Universe.  Under  Divine  action  they  have  gathered  to- 
gether, separated,  been  transformed,  and  they  have 
evolved  and  progressed.  They  have  become  oceans, 
mountains,  rivers,  plains,  deserts ;  they  have  manufac- 
tured the  habitation  of  man  and  man  himself.  And 
these  molecules  and  these  cellules  are  constantly  making 
the  Invisible  and  the  Intangible.  They  are  elaborating 
the  soul  of  the  Earth,  that  is,  the  psychical  world,  which 
our  eye  does  not  penetrate,  but  which  is  the  real  world, 
in  which  everything  happens,  everything  takes  place,  in 
which  spiritual  forces,  ideas,  sentiments,  passions,  vices 
and  virtues  are  fighting  a  fierce  battle ;  a  world  into 


82  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

which  the  gods  arc  constantly  flinging  fresh  elements 
and  for  which  man  is  working  with  all  his  cellules. 

Oh,  those  cellules  of  our  motor !  I  cannot  study  their 
strange  design  without  blinking  and  shuddering  a  lit- 
tle. It  is  so  ugly  and  yet  so  fascinating:  a  ground- 
work of  dark  seeds,  arranged  concentrically ;  a  clear 
egg-shaped  space  and,  in  the  centre,  a  black  speck,  the 
nucleus !  These  nucleoli,  I  am  told,  contain  the  most 
vital  part  of  our  being:  energy,  heredity,  terrible  and 
consoling  heredity,  the  secret  of  our  destiny.  Planted 
by  the  million,  in  the  divine  clay,  in  the  fertile  grey 
matter,  they  act  on  the  network  of  our  nerves,  on  the 
flow  of  our  blood  and  on  our  organs,  and  they  are  inde- 
fatigable workers.  They  have  been  weaving  the  Won- 
derful Romance  for  millions  of  years.  They  create  the 
most  prodigious  things,  all  the  dreams  of  mankind  and, 
among  those  dreams,  that  powerful  factor,  literature. 

When  the  Terrestrian  became  aware  of  God,  he  ad- 
dressed supplications,  prayers  and  hymns  to  Him,  and 
he  also  commenced  that  astonishing  dialogue  with  God, 
in  which,  thanks  to  auto-suggestion,  he  asked  the  ques- 
tions and  gave  the  answers  himself.  It  was  in  this  way 
that  sacred  literature  was  born.  After  this,  the  Ter- 
restrian began  to  sing  of  his  combats  and  of  his  love ; 
he  made  legends  out  of  his  childish  dreams.  His  facul- 
ties gradually  developed  and  he  tried  to  copy  life,  to 
create  dramas  and  fictitious  idylls.  This  was  the  be- 
ginning of  romantic  literature.  Later  on,  the  mys- 
teries of  Nature  attracted  his  attention  and  made  him 
think,  observe  and  wonder  and,  as  a  result  of  all  this, 
philosophical  literature  made  its  appearance. 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  83 

Literature,  like  music,  is  entirely  psychical,  much 
more  so  than  painting  and  sculpture.  Its  invisible 
waves  are  held  firm  by  writing,  either  in  the  manu- 
script or  in  the  book.  The  eye  sets  them  free  again  at 
will,  and,  coming  as  they  have  from  the  human  brain, 
they  return  thither  to  work  on  it,  influence  it  and  make 
it  produce  other  waves.  This  is  a  fine  instance  of  Di- 
vine economy.  These  psychic  waves  contain  superior 
and  inferior  elements.  They  carry  along  with  them 
true  and  false  ideas,  elevated  and  low  thoughts,  noble 
and  unworthy  sentiments,  pictures  of  great  beauty  and 
of  vile  ugliness.  They  carry  along  with  them  words 
which  console,  words  which  encourage,  words  which 
cause  despair,  words  which  vivify  and  words  which  kill. 
They  bring  the  dead  back  into  the  midst  of  the  living 
and  keep  their  words  and  their  souls  for  us.  These 
psychic  waves,  by  means  of  millions  of  instantaneous 
photographs,  taken  by  the  eye  and  the  mind  of  the 
writer,  transmit  to  us  the  most  distant  landscapes,  give 
us  the  sensation  of  a  beauty  that  we  cannot  see  for 
ourselves.  They  enlarge  our  inner  vision,  renew  and 
develop  the  soul  of  those  who  are  chained  down  by  some 
compulsory  task.  They  snatch  us  away  from  our  pre- 
occupations, from  our  cares,  take  us  out  of  ourselves, 
transport  us  to  the  earthly  Beyond,  just  as  though  far- 
seeing  Nature  wanted  to  give  us  what  the  English  de- 
scribe as  "  a  change."  There  are  waves  of  poetry  and 
waves  of  prose.  The  former  are  of  a  more  rare  es- 
sence ;  they  have  rhythm  and  cadence,  they  are  able  to 
lift  certain  souls  higher;  the  others  reach  farther  and 
have  more  universality.  All  the  various  waves  of  litera- 


84,  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

ture  have  gone  on  increasing  in  volume  and  in  depth. 
Every  race  has  enriched  them.  At  present,  they  must 
form  an  enormous  current,  a  sort  of  psychical  Gulf 
Stream.  They  mingle  and  intermingle,  but  they  never 
lose  their  own  special  characteristics.  Like  every  dif- 
ferent soul,  they  keep  their  own  individuality.  It  is 
impossible  to  confuse  Northern  literature  with  that  of 
the  South,  or  that  of  the  East  with  that  of  the  West, 
the  Dantesque  waves  with  the  Shakespearian  ones.  I 
imagine  all  these  waves  as  glistening  with  colours  and 
with  extraordinary  shades.  Those  of  our  present  epoch 
of  transition  are  most  likely  grey.  Ah,  yes,  they  must 
indeed  be  grey.  The  subjective  ideal  has  been  lived 
and  lived  over  and  over  again.  It  can  supply  nothing 
more  to  poor  writers.  It  is  like  a  burnt  out  ampoule. 
Humanity  has  had  enough  of  it,  but  still  clings  to  it, 
by  pure  atavism,  and  also  out  of  fear.  It  dare  not  let 
go  of  the  hand  which  holds  it  a  prisoner,  but  which  has 
led  it  along  for  centuries.  Some  great  crisis  will  ac- 
celerate its  evolution.  The  discoveries  of  Science,  which 
poets  and  novelists  seem  to  disdain,  just  as  theologians 
do,  will  turn  its  soul  towards  Nature,  where  the  sources 
of  true  poetry,  the  secret  of  our  origin  and  the  hopes 
of  our  last  days,  are  to  be  found. 

One  day,  at  the  Place  de  la  Comedie  Francaise,  I  was 
a  witness  of  the  psychical  action  of  romantic  literature, 
and  it  was  quite  a  revelation  to  me.  The  first  time  I 
knocked  against  Alfred  de  Musset's  statue,  for  it  is 
placed  in  such  a  way  that  one  does  knock  against  it,  it 
gave  me  a  shock  and,  on  looking  at  it,  I  was  furious. 
It  seemed  to  me  so  ridiculous  and  it  was  placed  in  such 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  85 

an  unsuitable  spot.  "  Posterity  always  does  things  in 
this  way,"  I  said  to  myself.  "  Thanks  to  its  childish 
curiosity,  it  turns  our  great  men  out  into  the  street. 
It  had  already  done  this  for  Alfred  de  Musset  when  it 
published  his  correspondence  with  George  Sand." 
With  these  thoughts  in  my  mind,  I  continued  on  my  way, 
raging  inwardly. 

One  morning,  last  Spring,  I  was  again  near  this 
statue.  I  had  never  examined  it  thoroughly,  as  there 
was  something  about  it  that  shocked  me  and  made  me 
feel  ill  at  ease.  Statues  generally  represent  mere  atti- 
tudes of  the  body,  but  this  one  reveals  a  state  of  mind, 
and  a  state  of  minol  exposed  in  a  public  square  seemed 
to  me  a  profanation.  I  felt  rather  more  courageous  on 
the  day  in  question,  and  I  began  to  examine  this  figure 
that  stands  out  in  full  relief.  I  saw  a  man  with  tired 
limbs,  whose  face  expresses  a  grief  that  is  morbid,  that 
has  neither  manliness  nor  nobility  about  it  —  one  of 
those  griefs  which  one  would  want  to  hide  and  which 
ought  to  be  hidden.  And  to  this  being,  whose  springs 
of  life  are  evidently  broken,  a  woman,  with  a  theatrical 
gesture,  is  pointing  to  the  door  of  the  Comedie  Fran- 
£aise.  This  does  not  appear  to  console  him  in  the 
least.  The  comic  side  of  the  conception  drove  my  emo- 
tion away  and  made  me  smile.  My  eyes  then  fell  on 
the  lines  from  La  Nuit  de  Mat,  engraved  on  the  socle 
of  the  statue  and  I  felt  rather  ashamed  of  my  irrever- 
ence: 

"  Rien  ne  nous  rend  si  grands  qu'une  grande  douleur  .  .  . 
Les  plus  desesperes  sont  ies  chants  les  plus  beaux, 
Et  j'en  sais  d'immortels  qui  sont  de  purs  sanglots." 


86  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

I  imagined  and  envied  the  special  voluptuousness  that 
the  poet  must  have  felt  when  he  traced  those  lines,  and 
more  particularly  the  last  one : 

"  Et  j'en  sais  d'immortcls  qui  sont  de  purs  sanglots." 

It  is  literature,  of  course,  but  how  it  reverberates  in 
the  ear  and  in  the  soul ! 

This  statue,  which  takes  up  so  much  room,  attracts 
the  attention  of  the  passers-by,  and  they  all  seem  to  be 
surprised  when  they  look  at  it.  Some  of  the  people 
stand  still  and  read  the  poetry.  I  was  curious  to  see 
the  various  effects  it  would  produce  and  I  walked  round 
it,  as  though  studying  it  myself.  A  workman,  wearing 
a  white  blouse,  with  a  flabby  cigarette  in  the  corner  of 
his  mouth,  and  a  gay,  chaffing  expression  on  his  face, 
read  out  the  celebrated  lines  to  his  companion.  "  Stuff 
and  nonsense!"  he  observed,  shrugging  his  shoulders, 
when  he  had  finished.  Two  worthy  women,  coming  out 
of  the  Louvre  shops,  with  cardboard  boxes  and  parcels 
in  their  hands,  stopped  and  read  the  lines,  but  they  did 
not  appear  to  understand  them  at  all.  Quite  a  young 
man  came  next.  He  was  of  Southern  type  and  looked 
as  though  he  had  not  had  enough  to  eat,  but  his  face 
was  interesting.  With  his  hands  buried  in  his  pockets, 
he  read  the  poet's  words  slowly,  and  then  looked  up  at 
him,  with  an  expression  that  seemed  to  ask  whether  he 
really  believed  that?  He  whistled  as  he  moved  away 
and,  in  the  whistle,  which  was  intended  to  be  sceptical, 
I  fancied  that  I  distinguished  a  quiver  of  emotion. 
After  him,  came  a  woman  of  about  fifty  years  of  age. 
She  was  poorly  dressed  and  looked  faded  and  colour- 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  87 

less,  but  there  was  a  certain  refinement  about  her  face 
and  her  whole  person.  She  looked  like  one  of  those 
women  who  are  doomed  to  carry  heavy  burdens  —  bur- 
dens that  are  too  heavy  for  them.  She  read  the  beauti- 
ful message  in  her  turn  and  I  saw  a  wonderful  thing. 
Her  face  lighted  up,  her  whole  body  drew  itself  up  as 
though  it  had  received  a  magnetic  touch.  She  pressed 
the  parcel  she  was  carrying  more  closely  against  her, 
with  a  quick,  nervous  movement,  and  her  ardent,  misty 
eyes  thanked  the  author  of  La  Nuit  de  Mai.  She  then 
went  on  her  way,  with  head  erect  and  a  firm  step. 

I  had  just  caught  the  effect  of  the  psychic  waves  of 
literature.  I  was  moved  to  the  very  depths  of  my  soul 
and  I  turned  away  myself  murmuring :  "  Oh,  God,  I 
did  not  know  it  was  so  great." 

It  was  certainly  not  impossible  chance  which  had 
brought  that  woman  there,  but  Providential  Will.  At 
that  cross-roads,  where  streams  of  hard  workers  pass 
by  every  day,  the  miracle  I  had  just  witnessed  takes 
place,  perhaps,  daily  for  some  creature.  I  no  longer 
think  that  the  poet's  statue  is  badly  placed.  I  fancy 
that,  on  its  footpath  there,  it  is  doing  a  fine  piece  of 
occult  work  in  the  way  of  consolation.  This  must  be 
for  Alfred  de  Musset  a  greater  reward  than  entering 
the  Comedie  Francaise.  I  hope  so,  at  any  rate. 


CHAPTER  V 

ONE  would  like  to  only  have  things  of  this  kind  to  tell 
with  regard  to  literature.  If  it  can  vivify,  it  can,  alas, 
also  kill.  It  has  a  great  many  crimes  to  answer  for, 
and  some  of  them  are  very  great  crimes.  Was  it  not 
thanks  to  having  read  of  the  love  of  Guinevere  and 
Lancelot,  that  Francesca  de  Rimini  and  her  brother- 
in-law,  Paul  Malatestrf,  declared  their  mutual  affection 
and  were  killed  by  Lanciotto,  the  husband?  Dante 
meets  the  beautiful  loving  woman  in  the  "  City  of 
Tears,"  and,  with  a  marvellous  intuition  of  Life,  he 
makes  her  say :  "  When  we  read  how  the  much  de- 
sired, laughing  lips  were  kissed  by  the  lover,  he,  who 
will  never  more  be  separated  from  me  (Paul  Malatesta), 
kissed  my  lips.  As  far  as  we  were  concerned,  the  real 
culprits  were  the  book  and  he  who  wrote  it.  That  day 
we  did  not  read  what  had  gone  before."  Dante  was 
right,  and  the  book,  in  this  case,  was  an  agent  of  per- 
dition. 

Quite  recently  a  young  man  I  knew,  who  was  rich  and 
gifted,  killed  himself,  as  a  result  of  having  read  too 
much  of  Schopenhauer  and  Nietzsche.  Thanks  to  their 
suggestion,  Life  seemed  to  him  to  be  merely  a  snare  and 
a  trap.  One  evening,  after  playing  the  death  of  Tris- 
tram and  Iseult,  that  death,  which  is  like  a  song  of 
triumph,  he  overturned  the  cup  which  was  full  to  the 
brim  of  wonderful  wine.  That  is  what  literature  has 

the  power  of  doing. 

88 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  89 

About  two  years  ago,  a  Roumanian  woman  came  to 
call  on  me,  and  begged  so  hard  that  I  would  see  her  that 
I  was  obliged  to  consent.  She  was  about  fifty  years  of 
age,  with  clear-cut  features.  Her  large,  dark,  sad- 
looking  eyes  and  nervous  nose  gave  a  tragic  expression 
to  her  face.  She  was  elegantly  dressed,  but  her  hat  was 
rather  awry,  her  dress  wrongly  hooked  and  her  jacket 
hanging  loose.  All  this  gave  the  idea  of  some  mental 
worry.  She  apologised  for  her  intrusion  and  then,  in 
an  abrupt,  rather  hard  voice,  she  said : 

"  I  have  a  son  who  is  dying  of  consumption.  He  has 
read  your  books  and  has  several  times  expressed  a  wish 
to  see  you  and  to  talk  to  you.  I  would  give  a  finger  of 
my  hand  to  satisfy  any  of  his  wishes,  for  we  Roumanians 
are  true  mothers.  When  I  heard  that  you  were  here, 
in  Lausanne,  I  came  at  once  to  ask  if  you  would  con- 
sent to  pay  us  a  visit.  Am  I  asking  too  much?  " 

"  No,  I  will  come  willingly,"  I  answered. 

Madame  X thanked  me  and,  in  order  that  I 

should  understand  the  situation,  she  gave  me  various 
details  with  regard  to  her  life. 

"  My  husband  behaved  abominably,"  she  said.  "  He 
was  unfaithful  to  me  under  my  very  roof.  I  went 
straight  away,  taking  my  little  boy,  just  as  a  cat  carries 
its  kitten  off  between  its  teeth.  I  watched  over  him 
jealously,  and  never  even  let  him  know  of  the  existence 
of  evil." 

"  That  was  a  mistake,"  I  said. 

"  Yes,  it  was  a  mistake,"  my  visitor  owned.  "  Like 
all  young  men,  he  wanted  to  complete  his  studies,  as  an 
engineer,  in  Paris.  Paris  is  the  terror  of  mothers  in 


90  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

our  country.  Our  young  men  leave  home,  simple- 
minded  and  straightforward.  They  come  back  to  us 
corrupted,  and  good  for  nothing  else  but  deceiving 
women." 

"  Because  they  only  frequent  bad  society  in  Paris," 
I  said,  by  way  of  excuse. 

"  That  may  be,  but  the  fact  remains.  Hoping  to 
keep  my  boy  out  of  the  dangers  that  I  suspected,  I 
went  with  him  to  Paris.  I  made  our  home  very  com- 
fortable and  pleasant,  so  that  he  might  receive  his 
friends  there,  and  I  congratulated  myself  on  my  wisdom. 
For  the  first  two  years,  I  had  no  anxiety  about  him 
and  then,  suddenly,  everything  changed.  A  wretched 
woman,  a  married  woman,  robbed  me  of  my  only  treas- 
ure. She  dragged  him  off  to  that  Dance  of  Death 
which,  in  your  country,  you  call  '  la  fete.'  It  is  a  fine 
fete!  In  a  very  short  time,  neither  his  mother,  nor  his 
own  country,  existed  for  him.  He  forgot  all  his 
dreams  and  ambitions,  everything  but  this  woman.  Ah, 
if  you  only  knew  how  many  sleepless  nights  I  passed 
at  the  window  of  our  flat,  in  the  Rue  Pierre  Charron, 
watching  for  him  until  daylight  appeared.  Very  often 
daylight  came  without  bringing  him  back  to  me.  This 
went  on  for  ten  months  and  you  will  see  what  ten 
months  did  for  the  finest  looking  young  man  it  was 
possible  to  find." 

The  poor  mother's  voice  gave  way  and  her  lips  were 
contorted  with  anguish. 

"  Oh,  but  with  all  the  care  you  will  lavish  on  him, 
and  with  the  vivifying  air  of  this  country,  you  will  be 
able  to  restore  him  to  health,"  I  said. 


91 

"  Alas,  I  can  only  prolong  his  life  a  little  and  make 
it  rather  more  endurable.  That  daughter  of  Satan 
must  have  poisoned  him,  for  there  has  never  been  con- 
sumption either  in  my  family  or  in  that  of  my  hus- 
band." 

"  Does  he  know  what  a  state  he  is  in?  "  I  asked. 

"  Oh,  he  must  know  it,  at  times,  but  he  does  not  own 
it  to  me.  We  are  both  pretending  to  be  quite  hopeful. 
When  tears  are  very  near  and  I  am  afraid  of  them  be- 
traying me,  I  look  up  at  the  ceiling  quickly.  I  have 
discovered  this  mechanical  method  of  driving  them  back. 
I  did  not  want  my  boy  to  have  all  the  horrors  of  the 
sanatorium.  I  have  rented  a  house  that  is  well  shel- 
tered, up  on  the  heights.  It  is  surrounded  with  fir- 
trees  and  there  is  a  wonderful  view.  My  boy's  foster- 
brother  has  just  taken  his  degree  as  a  doctor  and  he  is 

with  us,  helping  me  to  nurse  my  son."  Madame  X 

was  silent  for  a  few  seconds  and  then,  clenching  her 
hands  together  violently,  she  continued: 

"  I  ought  to  have  brought  him  here  earlier.  When 
I  meet  the  students  here  in  Lausanne,  radiant  with 
health,  I  am  horribly  jealous,  and  I  feel  the  most  terri- 
ble remorse." 

"  Do  not  be  remorseful,"  I  said ;  "  remember  you  have 
only  done  as  God  willed." 

A  flash  of  anger  lighted  up  the  eyes  of  the  Rou- 
manian woman. 

"  Then  God  is  cruel ! "  she  said  resentfully. 

"  No,  that  is  impossible !  "  I  exclaimed,  with  all  the 
force  of  my  sincere  conviction.  "  Cruelty  is  only  pos- 
sible with  inferior  beings." 


92  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

"  Come  to  my  home,  and  you  will  see  for  yourself," 

said  Madame  X bitterly.  "  *  The  Firs  '  is  some 

distance  away  though,"  she  continued ;  "  half  an  hour 
by  train  and  then  an  up-hill  walk  of  ten  minutes.  Are 
you  not  afraid  ?  " 

"  Not  in  the  least,"  I  answered.  "  I  can  climb  very 
well.  Tell  your  son  that  I  will  pay  him  a  visit  to- 
morrow." 

The  following  day  I  went  to  "  The  Firs."  The  house 
was  in  an  ideal  spot  and"  its  huge  Swiss  roof  gave  it  a 
home-like  look.  It  had  a  fir-wood  as  its  background 
and,  for  horizon,  the  Lake  and  the  Alps.  When  I  saw 
Madame  X —  — 's  son,  I  felt  a  pang  at  my  heart.  He 
was  undoubtedly  dying  —  and  dying  at  the  age  of 
twenty-six.  He  was  handsome,  with  the  Latin  type  of 
features;  his  nose  was  slightly  arched  and  his  eyes 
luminous  and  velvety,  like  those  of  an  Oriental.  His 
complexion  had  not  the  transparency  of  the  consump- 
tive patient :  it  was  like  wax  and  perfectly  livid  in 
places.  His  thick  hair  seemed  to  be  glued  down  by 
cold  perspiration.  I  saw  before  me  a  human  creature 
that  Nature  was  destroying,  with  all  the  rapidity  of 
the  very  end.  On  seeing  me,  the  poor  boy  blushed,  as 
much  as  his  pale  face  could  blush,  and  his  eyelids 
quivered.  The  blush,  the  quivering  eyelids  and  the 
eyes  avoiding  mine,  betrayed  instinctive  shame,  that 
physical  shame  that  I  have  more  than  once  surprised 
in  men  when  they  feel  themselves  disabled. 

He  bowed  very  low  on  taking  my  hand,  but  did  not 
kiss  it,  and  thanked  me,  timidly,  for  coming  to  see  him. 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  93 

I  endeavoured  to  put  him  at  his  ease  and  succeeded  in 
this.  A  less  timid  look  gradually  came  into  his  eyes, 
and  I  saw  in  them  the  light  of  his  very  soul.  In  a 
few  minutes,  we  were  old  friends.  Whilst  talking  to 
him,  my  eyes  took  in  the  beautiful  surroundings  in  the 
midst  of  which  this  intensely  painful  scene  was  being 
enacted.  The  ground  floor  of  the  house  had  high  ceil- 
ings and  a  verandah,  with  glass  only  at  the  two  sides. 
This  verandah  was  like  a  huge  room  opening  long- 
ways on  to  a  landscape  which  was  a  perfect  dream. 
There  was  a  sofa,  the  invalid's  reading  chair,  a  col- 
lection of  books  and  mountain  plants.  I  also  noticed 

Madame  X 's  work-basket  and  a  chess-board  with 

the  chess-men  set  ready  for  a  fight.  In  front  of  the 
verandah  was  a  living  carpet  of  simple  flowers,  all 
growing  in  luxurious  profusion.  To  the  right  and 
left  of  the  avenue  of  trees,  meadows  stretched  away 
all  along  the  side  of  the  slope.  In  one  of  these  mead- 
ows, a  cow  was  grazing  and  six  black  and  white  goats. 
The  air  came  to  us  pure  and  vivifying  and  the  sun 
bathed  us  in  its  rays.  I  was  surprised  to  think  that  all 
these  beneficent  forces  should  not  win  the  day  over 
the  homicidal  forces,  the  odious  work  of  which  I  could 
see  for  myself. 

Towards  four  o'clock,  the  young  doctor,  M.  Adamo- 
vitch,  arrived.  There  was  more  of  the  Slavonic  than 
the  Latin  race  about  him,  and  his  expression  was  both 
bright  and  serene.  The  way  he  shook  hands  expressed 
the  grief  that  he  felt.  He  whistled  for  the  goats  at 
once,  and  they  came  bounding  up  and  climbed  the  stone 


94  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

steps  of  the  verandah.  The  cook  milked  one  of  them 
and  the  invalid  gave  them  a  few  handfuls  of  salt  in 
exchange  for  his  cup  of  foamy  milk. 

"  Do  you  see  their  little  silver  bells  ?  "  he  said,  smil- 
ing. '*  The  cow  wears  them  as  well,  and  each  one 
gives  a  note  of  the  scale,  so  that  when  they  all  shake 
their  bells,  we  have  the  funniest  little  airs." 

The  tea-table  was  brought  and  the  singing  of  the 
samovar  enlivened  us.  Our  conversation  became  gen- 
eral, and  I  soon  saw  the  treatment  M.  Adamovitch  was 
trying  with  his  foster-brother.  He  interested  him  in 
all  the  questions  of  the  day  and  kept  him  in  touch 
with  all  that  went  on,  just  as  one  tries  to  keep  the 
head  of  a  drowning  man  above  water.  He  did  not 
want  his  patient  to  feel  outside  things,  as  it  were.  All 
that  he  said  gave  proof  of  an  amazing  knowledge  of 
human  nature,  and  it  was  very  evident  to  me  that  he 
was  doing  his  utmost  to  encourage  the  young  man 
to  be  hopeful.  He  would  make  fun  of  him  now  and 
then,  in  a  most  charming  way,  whilst  his  beautiful  dark, 
dog-like  eyes  beamed  on  him  with  affection.  I  noticed, 
though,  that  the  invalid  kept  drawing  out  of  the  gen- 
eral conversation.  He  watched  me  with  a  curious  ex- 
pression, and  his  eyes,  when  they  met  mine,  had  a 
questioning  look  in  them.  I  felt  the  appeal  of  his 
mind  magnetically,  and  I  answered  with  a  smile  that 
meant  we  would  have  a  quiet  talk  together. 

An  hour  later,  laden  with  flowers,  I  was  on  my  way 
to  the  station,  accompanied  by  M.  Adamovitch. 

"You  see  how  things  are?"  he  asked,  in  a  voice, 
hoarse  with  deep  feeling. 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  95 

"  Is  there  no  hope  ?  " 

"  None.  Directly  we  think  we  have  gained  ground, 
it  is  always  the  vile  bacilli  who  have  gained  it  instead 
of  us.  And  to  think  that  there  are  idiots  drivelling 
out  their  lives,  and  shapeless  creatures  in  good  health, 
whilst  this  one,  well  built  and  richly  gifted,  must  die. 
Nature  certainly  makes  strange  selections ! " 

"  Perhaps  the  selection  is  being  made  for  another 
world,"  I  suggested. 

A  smile  played  over  the  young  doctor's  face. 

"  Perhaps,"  he  said.  "  At  any  rate  it  proves  the 
existence  of  laws  that  we  do  not  know.  We  know 
nothing,  nothing  at  all,"  he  added,  emphasising  his 
words  in  a  sorrowful  way. 

I  had  promised  to  go  to  "  The  Firs  "  again  and, 
of  course,  I  went  again.  On  my  second  visit  I  found 
the  young  man  better. 

He  was  wearing  a  dark  red,  silk  coat  with  Oriental 
embroidery,  and  a  shirt  of  cream  surah.  A  dark  fur 
was  thrown  over  his  shoulders  and  this  set  off  his  hand- 
some face  and  showed  up,  alas,  the  ravages  of  the 
work  of  destruction  that  was  going  on. 

After  a  short  time,  Madame  X went  out  into 

the  garden,  under  the  pretext  of  gathering  some  flow- 
ers for  me. 

"  You  know  that  we  Roumanians  are  Latin,  do  you 
not?"  asked  the  invalid,  directly  we  were  alone.  "I 
mean  that  we  are  authentic  Romans." 

"  Yes,  you  are  the  descendants  of  the  colony  that 
Trajan  established  round  one  of  the  bends  of  the 
Danube.  I  knew  this  in  a  vague  way  and  then,  thanks 


96  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

to  one  of  those  mysterious  combinations  with  which 
our  lives  are  made  up,  I  have  for  the  last  two  years 
been  brought  into  contact  with  a  number  of  Roumani- 
ans. They  have  literally  invaded  my  orbit," 

"  And  even  my  mother  joined  in  pursuing  you." 

"  And  I  am  very  grateful  to  her  for  it,"  I  remarked. 

"  And  I  am,  too,  I  can  assure  you,"  said  the  young 
man  fervently. 

"  I  was  not  long  in  recognising  in  you  Roumanians 
the  Latin  soul,  mingled,  though,  with  certain  Slavonic 
characteristics.  This  mixture  was  revealed  to  me  very 
clearly  by  Le  Rhapsode  de  la  Dambcnita,  a  collection 
of  ballads  and  folk-songs  which  Helene  Vacaresco  has 
given  us." 

An  expression  of  keen  pleasure  lighted  up  my  young 
host's  face. 

"You  liked  them,  I  hope?" 

"  Liked  them?  I  have  never  read  anything  so  beau- 
tiful. Last  Autumn,  one  of  your  compatriots,  who 
was  quite  a  stranger  to  me,  left  a  volume  and  a  letter 
for  me,  at  my  hotel.  In  the  letter  she  asked  me,  in 
an  almost  commanding  way,  to  read  the  volume,  so 
that  I  might  learn  to  know  the  Roumanian  soul.  The 
calmness  of  the  proceeding  annoyed  me  and  my  first 
impulse  was  to  return  the  book  to  its  sender,  but  my 
first  impulses  are  always  the  wrong  ones.  The  fol- 
lowing morning,  when  I  woke,  which  is  always  the  mo- 
ment when  I  am  at  my  best,  I  opened  the  volume, 
simply  by  way  of  having  a  clear  conscience.  My  eyes 
fell  on  the  following  lines : 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  97 

"  Le  mai's  s'est  penche  vers  la  terre, 

"  La  plaine,  sa  mere,  1'a  senti, 

"  La  plaine  s'en  est  effrayee, 

"  Pourquoi  te  penches-tu  sans  que  le  vent  souffle? 

"  Mai's,  mon  enfant  fier ! 

The  soul  which  these  words  revealed  appealed  to  me 
immediately.  I  went  on  reading  and  my  admiration 
increased  as  I  read.  I  was  positively  startled  by  the 
simple  way  in  which  these  folk-song  writers  make 
Mother  Earth  talk  in  their  ballads.  They  make  the 
stars  talk,  the  elements;  the  living  and  the  dead,  and 
they  make  them  say  such  wonderful  things,  things 
which  give,  to  an  incredible  degree,  the  sensation  of 
our  union  with  all  Nature,  the  sensation  of  a  very 
near  Beyond,  where  all  those  who  have  been  called 
back  from  Earth  are  now  living.  And  that  is  Slavonic, 
is  it  not?" 

"  It  is  indeed." 

"  Helene  Vacaresco  tells  us  that  girls  improvise  and 
sing  these  ballads  whilst  weaving.  Is  that  really  pos- 
sible? " 

"  Certainly.  And  the  girl  who  forgets  the  words, 
or  is  not  inspired  to  improvise  the  next  lines,  throws 
her  spindle  to  one  of  the  others,  and  the  ballad  con- 
tinues, or  is  entirely  transformed,  thanks  to  evocations 
which  bear  no  relation  to  the  first  part  of  the  story." 

"  Well,  that  certainly  goes  to  prove,  in  the  most  strik- 
ing manner,  the  existence  of  those  currents  of  higher 
life  which  frequently  pass  through  simple  minds:  caus- 
ing them  to  give  utterance  to  words  of  which  they  have 


98  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

felt  the  infinite  sweetness,  the  hope  and  the  consolation, 
but  of  which  they  do  not  understand  the  real  meaning. 
And  these  currents  of  inspiration  frequently  give  ex- 
traordinary intuitions.  Take,  for  instance,  the  song 
of  the  Cobzar,  who  says: 

Aime-moi,  parce  que  j'ai  bcsoin  de  ton  amour  pour  mes 

chansons, 

Va-t-en,  parce  que  j  Fai  besoin  de  pleurer  pour  mes  chansons, 
Meurs,  parce  que  j'ai  besoin  de  chanter  la  mort  pour  mes 

chansons, 
Car  je  suis  le  Cobzar.* 

How  should  that  Roumanian  peasant  know  that  the 
love,  the  tears  and  the  grief  of  the  poet  must  serve  in 
the  weaving  of  his  work,  the  work  that  belongs  to  Uni- 
versal Life?  " 

"  Yes,  indeed,  it  does  really  seem  miraculous.  Did 
you  read  The  Song  of  the  Faithless  Ont?  " 

"  Yes,  it  is  one  of  the  finest  things  I  know  on  the 
subject  of  love  and,  from  a  psychical  point  of  view, 
there  is  a  depth  of  feeling  in  it  that  is  marvellous." 

"  I  am  like  our  peasants ;  I  feel  the  charm  of  our 
songs,  but  I  have  never  comprehended  them." 

"  You  will  comprehend  them  later  on." 

"Later  on?"  repeated  the  invalid  with  an  attempt 
at  a  smile. 

"  Yes,  later  on,"  I  said,  as  though  not  understanding 
him,  "  and  you  must  read  them  with  your  mind,  for  they 

*  Love  me,  for  I  need  thy  love  for  my  songs. 
Leave  me,  I  need  to  weep  for  my  songs, 
Die,  for  I  need  to  sing  of  Death  in  my  songs, 
For  I  am  the  Cobrar. 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  99 

contain  revelations  which  make  them  almost  sacred 
poems.  Are  not  those  words  of  a  dead  mother  a  revela- 
tion ? 

Je  lui  ai  demande  aussi :     "  Petite  mere 

Que  disent  les  morts  en  songeant  aux  vivants  ?  " 

Et  elle  m'a  repondu :     "  Ils  ont  pitie."  * 

That  must  be  true." 

"You  think  so?" 

"  I  do  think  so." 

"  So  much  the  better,"  said  the  doomed  young  man 
in  an  ironical  tone,  the  suffering  in  which  I  felt. 

"  I  assure  you,"  I  continued,  "  that  I  am  most  grate- 
ful to  Helene  Vacaresco  for  having  translated  these 
Folk-songs  for  us.  Just  a  few  weeks  after  reading  them, 
I  received  some  post-cards  that  would  have  served  ad- 
mirably for  illustrating  them.  They  came  to  me  from 
Bucharest,  from  a  person  unknown  to  me.  One  of  these 
cards  represented  two  girls  with  very  Latin,  or  I  might 
say  Roman,  faces.  They  were  of  the  peasant  class  and 
they  were  chattering  together  near  a  well.  They  looked 
as  though  they  were  waiting  there  for  '  the  one  who  was 
to  come.'  They  were  wearing  the  embroidered  chemise 
and  sash  which  are  their  pride,  as  the  work  of  their  own 
fingers.  All  their  feminine  vanity  seems  to  be  concen- 
trated in  this  handiwork  of  theirs.  Another  card  rep-* 
resented  the  cobzar  near  the  fountain,  singing  for  the 
benefit  of  those  who  came  to  fetch  water  for  their  house- 
hold. You  see,  I  was  destined  to  know  something  about 

*I  said  to  her  too:  "Mother  dear, 
What  do  the  dead  say  when  they  think  of  the  living?  " 
She  answered  me :  "  They  pity  them." 


100     THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

your  country,  as  books  never  come  into  our  hands  by 
chance." 

To  my  great  surprise,  my  words  brought  a  slight 
flush  to  the  invalid's  face  and  he  gave  a  short,  discordant 
laugh. 

"  Do  you  know  what  I  am  dying  of?  "  he  asked. 

"  In  the  first  place,  I  do  not  think  you  are  in  a  dying 
state,"  I  answered  in  a  light  tone. 

"  Oh,  yes,  you  do,"  he  insisted,  "  and  so  do  I.  Well, 
I  am  dying  of  the  effects  of  a  book." 

"  Of  a  book?  "  I  exclaimed. 

"  Yes.  Up  to  the  age  of  twenty-three,  I  had  lived 
a  regular  life,  thanks  to  the  way  my  mother  had  brought 
me  up,  and  also  thanks  to  the  affection  I  had  for  a  young 
cousin  of  mine.  One  day,  whilst  I  was  finishing  my 
studies  in  Paris,  one  of  my  Roumanian  friends  invited 
me  to  dinner  at  a  restaurant.  He  was  to  bring  his 
mistress  with  him,  a  strumpet  whom  he  had  taken  up 
and  of  whom  he  was  very  proud.  I  was  to  call  for  him 
at  half  past  seven.  I  arrived  punctually,  but  he  had 
not  come  in.  His  man-servant  showed  me  into  his  study. 
I  lighted  a  cigarette  and  then,  seeing  an  open  book 
on  the  divan,  I  picked  it  up  and  began  to  read  the  page 
at  which  it  was  open.  It  was  one  of  those  vile  books 
that  might  have  been  written  by  the  apes  for  apes. 
My  first  impression  was  one  of  instinctive  disgust  and 
I  threw  the  book  down  on  a  table  near.  You  under- 
stand, I  flung  it  away  as  though  it  were  an  infectious 
thing  and  a  little  while  after,"  added  the  young  man, 
flushing  again,  "  I  picked  it  up  again.  I  opened  it, 
and  a  certain  phrase,  on  one  of  the  pages,  went  to  my 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  101 

head  like  the  most  intoxicating  wine.  You  do  not  mind 
hearing  all,  do  you?  "  he  asked. 

"  No,  for  I  shall  understand  all  then." 

He  repeated  the  phrase  to  me  and  I  saw,  with  horror, 
that  it  still  affected  him. 

"  It  was  that  phrase,  which  made  my  blood  flame  just 
as  punch  does,  that  was  the  cause  of  everything.  When 
my  friend  returned,  the  die  had  already  been  cast,  as 
far  as  I  was  concerned.  Our  dinner  was  not  particu- 
larly gay.  Just  as  we  were  finishing,  the  door  of  the 
private  room  my  friend  had  engaged  at  the  restaurant 
opened,  and  a  befeathered  head  appeared.  That  head 
affected  me  like  an  electric  shock. 

"  '  Can  I  come  in  ? '  asked  the  girl. 

"  *  You  can,'  replied  my  host. 

"  She  came  in  and  told  us  that  she  had  been  dining 
with  a  South  American,  but  that  she  had  left  him,  as  he 
was  too  stupid  and  did  not  even  understand  drinking 
wine.  If  I  had  been  myself  that  night,  I  should  have 
felt  nothing  but  disgust  for  this  woman,  for  I  was  young 
enough  to  have  dreams  of  fair-haired  girls  with  stain- 
less reputations.  She  was  tall  and  very  thin.  With 
her  black  hair  and  red  lips,  her  face  made  me  think  of 
hell,  whilst  her  big,  long-shaped  eyes  were  like  a  scrap 
of  heaven.  All  that  sounds  like  a  phrase  taken  from 
a  novel,"  said  the  young  man  with  a  little  smile,  "  but 
it  was  just  the  impression  that  this  vivid  black,  red  and 
blue  gave  me.  It  seemed  to  me  that  the  heroine  of  the 
novel  I  had  been  reading  was  there  in  person,  and  she 
could  very  well  have  pronounced  the  wild  words  that 
had  struck  me  so  forcibly.  We  finished  our  evening  at 


102    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

the  theatre  and  she  went  with  us.  She  saw  what  a 
simple-minded  innocent  I  was.  She  tried  to  astound  me 
and  she  certainly  succeeded."  The  young  man  wiped 
his  moist  forehead  as  he  spoke.  "  She  succeeded  so 
well,"  he  continued,  "  that  she  made  a  perfect  fool  and 
idiot  of  me.  She  was  ill,  consumptive  to  her  very  mar- 
row, but  the  little  provision  of  life  that  remained  to 
her  was  flaming  with  desire  and  passion.  She  led  me 
on  to  all  kinds  of  excesses.  She  tortured  me  fright- 
fully, but  I  think  she  really  loved  me  a  little.  She  died 
a  year  ago  and  I  am  the  only  one  whose  forgiveness  she 
asked.  She  is  dead  and  you  see  me  now  —  A  fit  of 
coughing  punctuated  his  last  words  and  made  them 
tragic. 

"  That  woman,"  he  continued,  as  soon  as  he  could 
speak  again,  "  was  not  only  a  harlot  but  a  veritable 
glu,  and  I  am  like  the  poor  fellow  of  Richepin's  song. 
Like  him,  I  have  killed  my  mother,  torn  her  heart 
out—" 

"  No,  no,  do  not  exaggerate  things,"  I  said.  "  It 
is  only  in  very  rare  cases  that  mothers  do  not  suffer 
in  this  way  through  their  sons.  Your  mother  is  very 
happy  now  that  she  has  won  you  back,  and  I  am  quite 
sure  that  she  is  revelling  in  a  kind  of  maternal  voluptu- 
ousness whilst  she  is  working  to  restore  you  to  health." 

"  Perhaps  so,  but  I  can  see  now  all  the  harm  that  I 
have  done  her  by  my  mad  folly.  I  have  ruined  her 
health  and  destroyed  her  beauty.  Her  hair  has  turned 
white  and  there  are  rings  round  her  eyes  that  tell  of 
suffering.  My  remorse  is  terrible  and  I  keep  wonder- 
ing how  I  could  have  acted  as  I  did.  How  could  I  ?  " 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  103 

repeated  the  young  man,  clenching  the  arms  of  his  couch 
with  his  hands. 

"  You  have  simply  lived  the  life  that  was  your  des- 
tiny," I  said. 

"Ah,  yes,  yes,  that  is  it,  is  it  not?  I  feel  a  certain 
relief,  in  remembering  that  I  was  not  accountable  for 
the  various  circumstances  that  made  a  crimin'al  of  me. 
I  was  caught  in  a  snare.  I  should  never  have  seen  the 
book  that  led  to  my  damnation  if  my  friend  had  not 
bought  it,  and  if  he  had  not  been  kept  at  his.  club  play- 
ing bridge.  Then,  too,  the  book  was  open  at  the  right 
place,"  continued  the  young  man,  with  bitter  irony. 
"  Should  you  call  that  providential?  " 

"  Certainly,"  I  said. 

"  Oh ! "  he  exclaimed,  horrified  at  this  idea. 

"  By  Providence,  I  mean  all  the  divine  powers  which 
govern  us.  Providence  does  not  only  arrange  our  af- 
fairs for  us ;  its  mission  is,  very  frequently,  to  upset 
everything.  It  is  just  as  apt  to  break  the  rung  of  the 
ladder  under  our  feet,  as  to  join  together  the  one  that 
is  broken,  and  it  has  its  reasons  for  breaking  or  for 
mending  each  rung." 

"  I  certainly  do  not  believe  in  human  liberty,  for,  as 
soon  as  one  begins  to  study  the  physical  laws  of  Na- 
ture, it  is  impossible  to  believe  in  this ;  but,  according 
to  your  theory,  the  ills  with  which  we  are  beset,  and  we 
certainly  are  beset  by  them,"  he  added  bitterly,  "  are 
punishments." 

"  No,  because  those  who  are  good,  the  very  best 
even,  and  the  poor  innocent  animals,  have  their  share  of 
the  ills." 


104     THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

"  And  the  biggest  share,  too,  very  frequently  - 

"  Besides  which,"  I  put  in,  "  we  are  so  closely  bound 
together,  the  great  and  little  of  the  Universe,  the  poor 
and  the  rich,  that  the  guilty  could  never  be  punished 
without  the  innocent  suffering." 

"  You  are  right.  If,  for  instance,  my  illness  and 
my  death  were  my  punishment,  it  is  a  punishment  which 
will  be  felt  more  cruelly  by  my  mother  and  my  friend." 

"  And  then,  we  are  not  punished,  but  merely  worked 
upon.  And  that  is  quite  sufficient." 

"  Yes,  it  certainly  is  —  quite  sufficient." 

"  The  other  day,"  I  continued,  "  in  St.  John's  Gos- 
pel, I  came  across  the  most  consoling  revelation.  It 
was,  perhaps,  so  that  I  should  give  it  to  you.  When 
Jesus  was  confronted  with  the  man  who  had  been  born 
blind,  one  of  his  disciples  asked  him :  *  Master,  who 
did  sin,  this  man,  or  his  parents,  that  he  was  born 
blind?'  Jesus  answered,  *  Neither  hath  this  man 
sinned,  nor  his  parents ;  but  that  the  •works  of  God 
should  be  made  manifest  in  him.*  " 

"  Ah !  It  does  one  good  to  hear  that ! "  said  the 
young  man  with  a  sigh  of  relief. 

"  Jesus  believed  in  his  own  mission.  He  knew  that 
he  was  to  die  by  crucifixion,  in  order  to  carry  out  a 
plan  of  Providence.  It  is  that  which  makes  his  Pas- 
sion so  tragical.  In  the  Garden  of  Gethsemane,  he 
said :  *  My  soul  is  exceeding  sorrowful,  even  unto 
death.'  And  then  he  added :  *  O  my  Father,  if  it  be 
possible,  let  this  cup  pass  from  me.'  And  it  was  not 
possible.  We  can  see  that,  for  it  contained  the  ele- 
ments of  the  colossal  work  of  religious  evolution  which 


105 

was  to  be  carried  on.  And,  in  the  same  way,  the  cup 
of  bitterness  is  ever  presented  to  the  lips  of  all  human- 
ity and  humanity  has  repeated  the  prayer  of  Jesus,  and 
always  in  vain.  This  cup  must  be  absorbed,  because 
there  are,  no  doubt,  germs  of  progress  and  of  future 
happiness  in  it." 

"  Ah,  Madame,  what  an  optimist  you  are ! "  said  the 
young  man  with  a  faint  smile.  "  I  guessed  that  you 
were  when  I  read  your  books  and  that  was  why  I  so 
much  wanted  to  have  a  talk  with  you.  Tell  me,  was 
it  thanks  to  religion  or  science  that  you  came  to  be- 
lieve in  the  future?  " 

"  Neither  thanks  to  the  one  nor  to  the  other.  I  have 
neither  enough  religious  faith  nor  enough  knowledge. 
It  is  thanks  to  mere  common  sense  that  I  believe  as  I 
do.  Common  sense  frequently  leads  us  to  conclusions 
that  are  more  exact  than  those  arrived  at  by  science. 
Common  sense  showed  me  that  if  we  began  with  our 
birth  and  finished  with  our  death,  we  should  have  no 
meaning  whatever,  and  beings  or  things  without  meaning 
could  not  exist." 

"  You  are  right  there." 

"  Can  you  conceive  of  a  single  particle  of  a  whole 
that  is  immortal  being  annihilated?  " 

"  No,  it  is  inadmissible." 

"  Well,  then,  the  essence  of  Life,  which  is  the  radio- 
activity of  God,  must  confer  immortality  on  the  mole- 
cule that  it  creates.  It  gives  movement  to  this,  and 
movement  means  progress,  evolutions  and  infinite  trans- 
formations." 

"  Certainly." 


106    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

"  At  my  age,  you  see,  one  has  a  long  past  behind 
one,  a  very  short  present  and  the  future  is  beyond  the 
wall  of  doom  which  bars  the  way  for  all  of  us.  During 
these  last  years,  I  have  tried,  by  means  of  thought,  to 
get  up  a  little  higher,  to  make  myself  a  pair  of  intel- 
lectual stilts,  in  order  to  be  able  to  see  over  on  to  the 
other  side  of  the  wall.  My  stilts,  alas,  were  not  high 
enough.  I  was  only  able  to  see  gleams  of  light,  but 
these  gleams  of  light  permitted  me  to  conceive  of  some- 
thing very  consoling  and  very  beautiful." 

"  Something  consoling  and  beautiful,"  repeated  the 
young  man,  leaning  forward  eagerly.  "  Oh,  tell  me, 
tell  me  what  it  is,"  he  continued,  with  an  intonation 
which  revealed  his  ardent  desire  to  have  more  hope. 

I  looked  at  his  emaciated  face,  a±  his  eyes  shining 
with  mortal  feverishness  and  I  hesitated.  Would  my 
conception  of  this  world  and  the  other  one  reconcile 
this  poor  doomed  creature  to  his  fate?  It  was  an  ex- 
periment which  tempted  me. 

"  You  will  not  make  fun  of  my  dreams  ?  "  I  asked, 
by  way  of  gaining  time. 

"Make  fun?     God  forbid!" 

"  Well,  then,  I  believe  in  the  existence  of  numberless 
hierarchies,  of  higher  beings,  of  those  beings  whom 
theologians  call  Angels,  Archangels,  Powers,  Domina- 
tions. The  Bible,  in  certain  of  the  Psalms,  speaks  of 
them  as  gods  and  we  call  them  Nature  and  Providence. 
I  do  not  see  them  inactive,  in  ecstatic  dreams,  nor  yet 
spending  all  their  time  in  singing  the  praises  of  the 
Eternal  God.  I  see  them  serving,  struggling,  fighting 
for  and  with  God.  They  appear  to  me  as  the  chiefs 


107 

of  His  celestial  armies,  His  initiated  ones,  His  trans- 
mitters, His  agents,  the  makers  of  the  worlds  which  are 
scattered  through  the  Universe  like  grains  of  sand.  I 
see  them  capturing  the  nebulae,  in  which  the  Supreme 
Creator  has  enclosed  all  the  physical  and  psychical  ener- 
gies. I  see  them  developing  these  germs  in  thousands 
of  different  forms,  and  leading  them  on  towards  more 
and  more  perfect  conditions.  Their  first  creations,  for 
instance,  were  monstrous.  The  ancestor  of  man  was 
not  the  fine  Adam  of  the  legend.  He  had  a  flattened 
cranium,  and  under  this  cranium  a  wretched  little, 
primitive  motor,  just  as  our  first  automobiles  had:  his 
jaws  were  made  for  crunching  bones  and  tearing  flesh, 
his  arms  were  huge  and  capable  of  mortal  hugs.  By 
means  of  one  deluge  after  another,  the  gods  evidently 
wanted  to  get  rid  of  these  crude  specimens,  just  as  the 
child  wipes  from  his  slate  the  drawings  which  do  not 
satisfy  him.  The  progress  of  these  gods  has  marked 
our  progress ;  when  they  had  learnt  something,  they 
taught  us.  Our  progress  has  been  obtained  by  means 
of  continual  struggle,  by  desperate  efforts  on  their 
part  as  well  as  on  ours.  With  us,  and  by  means  of  us, 
they  have  experienced  the  j  oy  of  victory  and  the  bitter- 
ness of  defeat.  Just  imagine  all  that  has  taken  place 
from  the  time  when,  by  striking  together  two  pieces  of 
different  woods,  the  first  spark  of  fire  was  obtained  and 
the  time  when,  by  the  contact  of  two  different  metals, 
the  first  spark  of  electricity  was  obtained.  Is  it  not 
marvellous  to  think  that  we  are  now  able  to  read,  from 
the  stone,  the  history  of  the  earliest  days  of  human- 
ity?" 


108     THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

"  It  is  miraculous  even." 

**  What  divine  pleasures  these  Powers  must  feel  in 
playing  the  great  game  of  Life,  in  creating  races,  na- 
tions, empires!" 

"  Yes,  and  in  preparing  their  decadence ! " 

"  Of  course,  because  they  know  that  on  falling  to 
pieces,  things  produce  fresh  radiations." 

"  Ah,  your  optimism  is  of  a  robust  kind,"  said  the 
young  man,  smiling.  "  And  are  there  any  goddesses 
for  your  gods  of  this  Earth  ?  "  he  added  rather  mock- 
ingly. 

"  Certainly,  the  feminine  element  must  exist  through- 
out the  Universe.  It  is  quite  easy  to  recognise  this 
element  in  certain  creations." 

"  And  what  form  do  you  think  these  Higher  Beings 
have.?  " 

"  Only  a  poet  who  is  a  great  genius  could  imagine 
that,"  I  answered.  "  I  think  they  have  a  body,  though, 
as  the  body  is  the  servant  of  the  soul." 

"  More  often  the  master  of  the  soul,"  murmured  the 
young  man,  looking  down. 

"  With  men,  yes,"  I  agreed ;  "  but  the  gods,  prob- 
ably, know  how  to  hold  it  in  hand.  Then,  too,  accord- 
ing to  the  Gospel,  they  have  glorious  bodies.  I  do  not 
know  exactly  what  that  means,  but  it  gives  the  idea  of 
physical  and  psychical  beauty.  The  Holy  Book  is  full 
of  these  unexpected  gems  of  expression.  They  prob- 
ably undergo  that  transformation  which  we  call  death, 
just  as  we  do.  I  imagine  too,  that  there  must  be  a 
flora  and  fauna  peculiar  to  their  regions ;  and  cities, 
temples  and  palaces,  of  which  ours  are  only  feeble  re- 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE     109 

productions.  Shall  I  tell  you,  too,  how  I  imagine  these 
gods  occupied?  " 

"  Yes,  by  all  means." 

*'  Well,  I  always  see  them  in  front  of  tables  of  har- 
mony, divine  claviers.  I  see  them  directing  their  strug- 
gle and  ours,  by  means  of  psychical  currents,  sending 
waves  of  thought,  of  ideas,  sentiments  and  inspirations 
over  our  planet.  It  is  the  remembrance  of  a  simple 
professor  of  a  little  Umbrian  town,  whom  I  used  to 
know,  which  created  this  picture  for  me.  His  name  was 
Dini  and  I  always  enjoy  thinking  of  him,  as  he  was  a 
seeker  after  truth.  People  said  he  was  crazy,  but  so 
many  wise  men  have  been  taken  for  mad  ones,  and  so 
many  fools  have  been  taken  for  wise  men.  This  Dini 
maintained  that  every  creature  gave  out  a  musical 
phrase  and  that  every  event  did  too.  He  had  put  all 
that  he  knew  into  music  and  had  written  many  pam- 
phlets exposing  his  theories.  I  often  wondered  whether 
there  were  not  a  great,  intuitive  truth  in  his  philosophy. 
I  am  now  going  to  confess  to  you  a  private  impression 
of  mine  which  seems  to  me  curious..  I  have  the  most 
profound  and,  if  I  dared  I  would  say,  loving  adoration 
for  the  God  whom  I  cannot  conceive.  I  feel  His 
existence  within  me.  As  regards  Providence,  I  feel 
nothing  of  this  adoration." 

"  Perhaps  it  is  because  you  have  a  certain  conception 
of  Providence." 

"  Perhaps  that  is  it,"  I  assented,  somewhat  surprised 
at  the  subtlety  of  the  reason  suggested.  "  I  have  never 
been  on  good  terms  with  Providence.  When  I  have  felt 
the  bit  and  the  stirrup,  I  have  always  reared.  At  pres- 


110    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

ent  even,  although  I  know  that  Providence  is  not  free, 
when  the  newspapers  are  full  of  calamities,  I  never  fail 
to  reproach  Providence  vehemently." 

"  Do  you  mean  to  say  that  you  think  all  events,  po- 
litical and  others,  are  the  work  of  the  gods?  " 

"  Certainly  I  do,  and  if  you  read  your  newspaper 
with  this  idea  in  your  mind,  you  will  see  how  interesting 
it  will  all  seem.  It  is  all  divine  copy.  That  sounds 
odd,  does  it  not,  but  is  the  epopee  of  the  Earth  any- 
thing else?  " 

"  Does  not  your  conception  make  mere  puppets  of 
us?" 

"  Not  puppets,  but  soldiers,  disciples,  initiated  ones 
and  initiators,  creatures  who  learn  to  put  things  to- 
gether in  a  perfect  way,  just  as  in  that  game  of  *  puz- 
zles '  which  is  so  much  in-  favour  at  present.  The 
engineer  learns  the  art  of  combining  forces,  the  archi- 
tect the  art  of  building,  of  guiding  the  work  of  many 
hands ;  geometricians  and  mathematicians  study  the 
science  of  figures  and  of  numbers.  Chemists  study  the 
play  of  molecules,  their  composition  and  decomposition. 
Doctors  study  the  structure  of  the  human  body  and  are 
employed  in  mending  it  and  sometimes  in  curing  it. 
Kings  and  statesmen  are  learning  the  art  of  leading  the 
masses  and  of  maintaining  order  amongst  them.  The 
novelist  does  something  which  is  still  more  extraordi- 
nary and  more  significant.  He  creates  fictitious  beings, 
veritable  marionettes,  the  elements  of  which  he  finds  in 
the  lobes  of  his  brain.  He  elaborates  happy  or  un- 
happy destinies  for  them,  makes  them  talk  and  act,  and 
makes  them  so  living  that  their  words  and  deeds  affect 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE     111 

beings  of  flesh  and  blood,  animated  beings.  Does  it 
not  seem  to  you,  from  the  instances  I  have  given,  that 
we  are  all  learning  our  business  as  future  gods  ?  " 

"  Yes,  it  does  seem  like  it." 

"  We,  in  our  turn,  shall  be  makers  of  worlds.  Have 
you  not  noticed  that  man's  favourite  plaything  is  the 
ball,  a  little  globe?  I  see  in  that  a  symbol  and  a 
promise." 

"  Oh  !  "  protested  the  invalid,  smiling. 

"  Yes,  indeed,"  I  persisted.  "  We  shall  learn  to 
know  the  divine  work  more  thoroughly,  we  shall  know 
the  enjoyment  of  handling  the  infinitely  great  things, 
such  as  love,  hatred,  ambition,  patriotism  and  heroism 
and  the  infinitely  small  things  too,  which  are  just  as 
formidable ;  vanity  for  instance,  snobbishness  and  so 
many,  many  other  things." 

Whilst  giving  my  conception  of  our  Hereafter,  I  had 
watched  the  effect  of  my  words  on  the  invalid's  face 
and,  to  my  intense  satisfaction,  I  saw  that  his  expres- 
sion became  more  gentle  and  that  his  face  lighted  up 
with  hope. 

"  Ah,  you  will  reconcile  me  with  Death,"  he  said, 
with  a  smile  suggestive  of  youthfulness. 

"  Death  is  in  Life  and  Life  is  in  Death,"  I  continued. 
"  They  are  only  transformations." 

"You  believe  in  reincarnations  then?" 

"  Certainly  I  do." 

"  Ah,  so  much  the  better,"  said  the  young  man,  with 
<a  sigh  of  relief.  "  Adamovitch  and  I  have  often  dis- 
cussed this  probability,  and,  after  each  of  our  discus- 
sions, this  has  seemed  to  be  more  clear,  more  compati- 


112    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

ble  with  divine  justice.  We  have  never  been  able  to 
convince  my  mother,  though.  She  is  afraid  of  losing 
her  son  more  completely,"  he  added,  with  an  expression 
in  his  eyes  which  seemed  to  ask  me  for  a  contradiction. 

"  One  might  say  that  *  women  have  reasons  of  which 
reason  is  ignorant,'  "  I  said.  '*  The  bonds  which  unite 
us  and  which  group  us  together  may  change  without 
being  broken.  In  a  great  love,  or  a  great  friendship, 
there  is,  perhaps,  an  infinite  number  of  sentiments.  It 
cannot  be  created  all  at  once.  If  reincarnation  did  not 
exist,  man,  for  the  simple  reason  of  having  dreamed  of 
it,  would  be  better  than  God  and  that  is  not  possible. 
Do  you  know  what  I  think?  Nature,  which  is  the  su- 
preme poet,  only  created  Death  for  the  sake  of  sur- 
rounding our  successive  transformations  with  sacred 
mystery." 

"  Are  you  not  inventing  all  this  for  my  sake?  "  asked 
the  young  man,  clasping  his  pale  hands  together. 

"  No,  I  assure  you  I  am  not.  For  a  long  time  this 
idea  has  haunted  my  mind.  You  must  agree  that  it 
would  not  have  been  easy  for  us  to  change  our  bodies 
here  on  earth.  When  the  gods  have  taken  away  any 
Terrestrian,  they  have  always  wrapped  themselves  in 
clouds.  I  do  not  believe  in  the  astral  promenades  of 
the  theosophical  dream  or  of  that  of  the  spiritists. 
Transmissions  must  take  place  without  any  break  in 
the  continuity.  I  am  afraid  the  novelist  ignores  the 
philosopher  here,"  I  added,  smiling.  "  Do  you  think 
my  dreamr  quite  impossible?" 

"  It  seems  to  me  that  it  is  only  too  beautiful,  and 
how  far  off  our  apotheosis  is ! " 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  113 

"  That  does  not  matter,  for  time  does  not  exist  in 
eternity  and  we  are  already  in  eternity.  The  Earth 
was  in  it  from  the  very  day  that  it  was  conceived  by 
the  Eternal  God." 

"  In  eternity  !  "  The  young  man's  eyes  reflected  his 
thoughts.  "  It  is  quite  possible,"  he  continued,  speak- 
ing very  slowly,  "  that  we  are  in  eternity." 

"  It  is  even  quite  sure  ?  "  I  put  in.  "  We  have 
existed,  no  doubt,  for  millions  of  years.  How  many 
atavisms  and  how  many  generations  must  have  been 
needed  for  Caesar  to  be  a  legislator,  an  orator,  a  war- 
rior and  a  writer;  for  Michael  Angelo  to  be  a  painter, 
a  sculptor  and  a  poet,  and  for  Leonardo  da  Vinci  to 
be  a  painter,  a  geometrician  and  a  mathematician !  " 

"  I  wonder  whether  the  day  will  come  when  we  shall 
be  conscious  of  these  stages  ? "  suggested  the  inva- 
lid. 

"  Oh,  yes,  when  we  are  fit  for  the  consciousness,  when 
we  can  look  at  this  long  ladder  of  progression  without 
turning  dizzy.  The  plant,  the  animal  and  man  are  all 
gradually  developing.  The  soul  of  the  plant,  which  at 
present  has  only  veins  and  sap,  will  have  cerebral 
cellules,  nerves  and  blood;  the  soul  of  the  animal  will 
have  eyes  that  will  be  able  to  see  heaven;  the  soul  of 
man  will  have  a  glorious  body.  This  conception  is  very 
childish,  perhaps,  and  even  barbarous,  but  it  must  come 
somewhere  near  the  truth,  as  it  would  explain  the 
inequality  of  conditions  and  destinies,  an  inequality 
which  exists  among  the  animals,  just  as  it  does  among 
us,  and  it  would  satisfy,  to  a  certain  extent,  our  sense 
of  justice." 


114    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

The  young  man  nodded  his  approval  and  I  con- 
tinued : 

"  All  creatures  are  elaborating  their  own  individual 
soul  and  a  higher  life.  People  say  that  when  the  gods 
created  the  moth-worm,  they  wanted  to  reveal  this 
future  to  us ;  but  we  cannot  yet  understand  their  reve- 
lations. In  Rome,  when  any  one  dies,  the  common  peo- 
ple say :  '  Si  sfarfallata.' — *  He  has  pierced  through 
his  cocoon.' ' 

"  What  a  pretty  idea ! " 

"Yes,  is  it  not?  The  day  when  Pius  IX  died,  I 
heard  a  good  woman  say  to  another :  *  'E  dunque  si 
sfarfallato  il  Papa?' — *  And  so  the  Pope  has  pierced 
his  cocoon ! '  It  was  sublime  as  regards  intuition,  but 
it  was  a  droll  idea,  that  of  a  Pope  becoming  a  moth  or 
a  butterfly.  And  yet,  it  must  be  like  that,  we  are  all 
making  wings  for  ourselves  — 

"  Ah,  if  I  could  only  share  your  faith  and  confi- 
dence ! "  exclaimed  the  young  man,  clasping  his  hands 
together  in  a  gesture  of  prayer. 

"  All  that  will  come  if  you  will  only  think  about  Life 
a  little." 

"  Think  about  Life !  That  is  just  what  I  do  all  the 
time  and  the  more  I  think  about  it,  the  less  I  under- 
stand it." 

"  What  are  you  reading  now?  " 

"Travels." 

"  That  is  all  very  well,  but  there  is  something  bet- 
ter. Will  you  promise  to  read  a  book  that  I  recom- 
mend?" 

"  Yes,  I  will  certainly  read  it." 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  115 

"  Well  then,  get  a  copy  of  Les  Souvenirs  Entomolo- 
glques  d'Henri  Fabre.  He  is  considered  the  greatest 
naturalist  in  the  world.  He  is  nearly  eighty  and,  for 
half  a  century,  he  has  been  studying  insects.  The  ob- 
servations that  he  has  given  to  science  are  treasures 
that  no  money  could  buy,  and  he  is  poorer  than  a  work- 
man. France,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  does  not  know  how 
to  reward  its  servitors,  nor  how  to  help  its  searchers 
after  truth.  It  is  only  generous  in  monuments  and 
statues.  England  and  America  would  have  lavished 
honours  and  money  on  a  man  like  Henri  Fabre,  and  he 
would  have  been  able  to  procure  the  various  instruments 
that  he  needed  for  his  studies.  With  the  most  primi- 
tive of  tools,  though,  with  his  own  poor  eyes,  he  has 
revealed  to  us  something  of  the  profoundness  of  Life. 
If  you  read  Les  Souvenirs  Entomologiques,  you  will  be- 
lieve in  our  past  and  in  our  future.  I  will  bring  you 
Les  Beaux  Dimanches  by  Dr.  Bourget.  It  is  a  book 
that  is  both  simple  and  clever,  and  it  will  have  the 
same  effect  on  you  as  a  purifying  bath." 

"  I  will  read  both  books.  The  state  of  grace  of  which 
you  have  frequently  spoken  has  never  been  given  to  me, 
but  I  am  convinced  that  your  visit  is  a  providential  one." 

"  Yes,  certainly,  and  for  me,  too,  it  has  been  provi- 
dential. By  explaining  to  you  my  convictions,  I  have 
made  things  more  clear  to  my  own  mind.  Without 
suspecting  it,  I  was  doing  double  work!  Is  not  that 
wonderful?  " 

My  companion  nodded  slowly. 

"  And  it  is  more  wonderful  still  as  regards  the  in- 
sects," I  added,  smiling. 


116          THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

Just  at  this  moment,  Madame  X returned  from 

the  garden  with  a  whole  sheaf  of  early  chrysanthemums. 
She  gazed  eagerly  at  her  son's  face  and,  on  seeing  him 
serene  and  happy,  she  thanked  me  with  eyes  shining 
with  unshed  tears.  When  I  came  away,  the  young 
man  clasped  my  hand  with  an  expression  of  touching 
gratitude.  I  raised  it  impulsively  to  his  lips  and  their 
contact,  so  cold  already,  made  me  shiver  through  and 
through,  but  a  beautiful  look  of  gratitude  came  into 
his  eyes. 

Before  very  long  I  went  again  to  "  The  Firs,"  as  I 
wanted  to  judge  of  the  effect  of  the  books  I  had  pre- 
scribed. I  met  Dr.  Adamovitch  in  the  tram,  and  he 
told  me  at  once  that  my  inspiration  had  been  a  happy 
one  in  advising  his  patient  to  read  Leg  Souvenirs  Ento- 
mologiques. 

"  They  have  taken  him  out  of  himself,"  he  added. 
"  He  thinks  of  nothing  but  insects  at  present,  and  he 
is  delighted  at  the  thought  of  talking  things  over  with 
you." 

The  invalid  saw  me  from  the  verandah  and  waved  the 
volume  he  was  holding,  in  quite  a  youthful  way.  He 
came  forward  to  meet  me  and  his  whole  body,  and  the 
expression  of  his  face,  seemed  to  be  animated  by  fresh 
thoughts. 

"  Ah,"  he  said,  after  shaking  hands,  "  without  you  I 
should  have  known  nothing  of  the  real  profoundness  of 
Life." 

"  You  might  say  without  Henri  Fabre." 

"  Yes,  and  I  cannot  tell  you  what  admiration  I  now 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  117 

have  for  him.  As  soon  as  I  am  able  to  travel,  I  shall 
go  and  pay  my  respects  to  him." 

His  mother's  eyelids  quivered  on  hearing  this  plan, 
which  she  knew  could  never  be  carried  out.  As  we  took 
our  seats  at  the  tea-table,  she  said  to  me,  with  one  of 
her  heroic  smiles : 

"  You  know,  we  dare  not  kill  an  insect  now.  I  little 
thought,  any  more  than  Andros  did,  that  they  were 
such  wonders !  " 

"  Natural  History  is  the  divine  book,  par  excellence," 
I  replied.  "  It  contains  the  true  Revelation  and  so 
few  people  read  it.  It  ought  to  be  within  reach  of 
every  child.  It  would  be  a  source  of  amusement  and 
interest.  It  would  teach  children  to  see,  to  observe  the 
flight  of  the  bird,  the  work  of  insects,  the  life  of  plants. 
It  would  teach  the  child,  above  everything  else,  that 
there  are  other  things  in  the  world  beside  himself,  the 
future  man,  and  it  would  help  him  to  know  God  by 
something  visible  and  tangible.  God  would  not  seem 
so  far  away,  but  just  as  He  is,  quite,  quite  near  to  us !  " 

"  And  yet,"  put  in  Monsieur  Adamovitch,  "  the  ma- 
jority of  men  of  science  have  no  kind  of  religion.  How 
do  you  account  for  that?  " 

"  In  a  very  simple  way.  What  they  discover  in  the 
Heavens,  in  the  depths  of  the  Ocean  and  of  the  Earth, 
makes  them  believe  in  the  absolute  falseness  of  these 
metaphysical  dreams  which  are  our  religions.  They 
disdain  them  and  they  are  wrong  in  this,  for  these  won- 
derful dreams,  which  are  so  touching,  although  very 
far  from  the  truth,  are  full  of  intuitions  and  divine 


118    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

inspirations.  There  are  symbols  within  them  which 
might  explain  many  things.  Men  of  science  are  only 
doing  the  work  of  artisans.  They  are  seeking,  classi- 
fying, translating  divine  manuscripts,  without  under- 
standing the  revelation  that  is  within  them.  Thinkers 
and  poets  will  be  born  though,  some  day,  who  will  un- 
veil for  us  the  true  sense  of  things  and  who  will  show 
us  the  real  soul." 

"  Ah,  if  they  would  only  come ! "  exclaimed  the  doc- 
tor. "We  need  the  truth,  for  we  are  saturated  with 
fables  and  lies !  " 

"  They  will  come,"  I  continued.  "  A  few  days  ago, 
I  read  a  little  poem  called  The  Grasshopper,  which  de- 
lighted me.  It  seemed  like  the  first  fruit  of  the  evolu- 
tion which  has  commenced.  It  was  the  birth  of  the 
grasshopper  which  inspired  the  poem.  It  shows  the 
work  of  Nature  and  the  most  beautiful  hope  emanates 
from  this  work.  I  am  only  sorry  to  have  forgotten  the 
author's  name." 

"  It  appears  that  in  the  schools  now,  in  France,  it  is 

forbidden  to  speak  of  God,"  said  Madame  X . 

"  Do  you  not  think  that  this  is  a  sign  of  decadence?  " 

"  Of  evolution  only,  I  hope.  I  think  it  is  not  un- 
wise that  the  teaching  of  religious  doctrine  should  be 
left  to  clergymen  or  priests,  but  I  think  it  is  gro- 
tesquely stupid,  and  even  criminal,  that  teachers  should 
not  turn  the  thoughts,  love  and  admiration  of  the  child 
towards  the  Being  from  whom  we  all  emanate  and  whose 
works  they  are  explaining  from  morning  to  night. 
They  obliterate  the  religious  sentiment  in  the  new- 
comers, and  this  sentiment,  if  rightly  understood,  might 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  119 

do  much  towards  elevating  their  minds  and  their  hearts. 
The  force  of  which  they  deprive  their  pupils  might 
take  them  upwards,  and  they  certainly  have  not  the 
right  to  do  this.  One  day  in  Paris,  I  was  passing  by 
the  Madeleine  with  a  friend  who  has  no  religious  faith 
whatever.  A  first  communion  service  had  just  been 
held,  and  the  communicants  were  leaving  the  church. 
4  Do  you  know,'  said  my  friend,  stopping  short,  '  I 
cannot  forgive  my  father  for  having  deprived  me  of 
the  emotion  that  those  ridiculous  boys,  with  white 
badges  on  their  arms,  have  j  ust  felt.  My  father  wished 
me  to  be  free  to  choose  my  own  religion,  and  I  did  not 
choose  any  at  all  1 '  For  my  part,  I  should  like  to  see" 
the  name  of  God  in  gold  letters  on  all  our  public  build- 
ings, and  His  name  evoked  in  all  our  public  assemblies 
and  fetes.  He  alone  can  give  dignity  to  our  acts  and 
some  prestige  to  our  poor  habitations  which  are  so 
near  the  ground." 

"  The  greatest  nations  are  the  most  religious  ones," 
put  in  Monsieur  Adamovitch.  "  Look  at  England,  for 
instance." 

"  The  English  have  religious  sentiment,"  I  said. 
"  It  can  be  felt  in  their  poetry  which  is  so  elevated,  and 
in  their  hymns,  which  are  so  touching,  and  so  manly. 
The  French  have  only  religion  itself,  but  they  have 
much  more  than  foreigners  think,  and  much  more  than 
they  themselves  think  they  have.  Most  of  them, 
though,  cannot  separate  God  from  the  Church  and  its 
doctrines  and  practices.  The  anti-clericals  consider 
God  as  essentially  ecclesiastical  and  anti-republican 
even.  It  is  for  that  reason  that  they  reject  Him.  If 


120     THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

there  were  some  thinkers,  and  some  courageous  think- 
ers among  the  teaching  staff,  they  would  write  at  the 
bottom  of  the  photographic  slides  which  reveal  the  won- 
ders of  Nature:  *  The  Author,  God!'  They  would 
capture,  as  the  Church  does,  and  better  still  than  the 
Church,  that  immense  force  and  this  laicised  God  would 
have  the  most  fervent  adorers." 

"  But  perhaps  the  Church  would  not  approve,"  said 
the  invalid,  smiling. 

"  That  is  very  likely.  The  hostility  that  foreigners 
take  for  impiety  is  only  a  question  of  politics.  The 
Catholic  Church  is  essentially  Roman.  In  its  early  days 
it  had  dreamed  of  being  a  Christian  Republic,  it  had 
even  taken  the  name  of  Republic,  which  was  so  dear 
to  the  Roman  people.  It  became  a  theocracy  though, 
and  the  Republic  remained  laical.  The  Church  domi- 
nated Emperors  and  Kings,  but  it  has  always  beaten 
a  retreat  when  confronted  by  that  intangible  force, 
the  public,  res  publica.  The  two  rival  powers  are 
enemies ;  they  have  the  same  unyieldingness,  the  same 
tyranny,  the  same  ambition,  that  of  universalness. 
The  Catholic  Church  little  thinks  how  republican  it 
really  is,  just  as  the  Republic  little  thinks  how  much 
of  the  Roman  Church  it  has  about  it.  Between  these 
two  powers,  the  struggle  has  been  both  childish  and 
barbarous.  The  Republican  government  has  taken 
away  from  the  French  the  sacred  privilege  of  liberty 
of  conscience,  a  privilege  which  is  respected  in  all 
civilised  States.  France  does  not  deserve  this  insult. 
Nature  has  not  yet  given  us  cither  the  priest,  the 
healer  or  the  republican.  As  for  the  priest,  we  have 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  121 

only  ecclesiastics ;  instead  of  the  healer,  we  have  pro- 
fessors and  doctors ;  and  instead  of  the  Republican  we 
have  men  of  different  parties.  When  these  three  great 
human  unities  are  once  created,  we  shall  all  be  happier. 
In  the  meantime,  politics  are  one  of  the  cruel  agents  of 
the  struggle  in  which  we  have  to  participate,  the  strug- 
gle which  begins  very  low  down  in  the  scale  of  beings, 
as  you  have  seen  when  reading  Souvenirs  Entomolo-~ 
giques." 

"  Yes,"  said  the  young  man  with  a  bright  look  on 
his  face,  "  and  man's  struggle  now  seems  to  me  merely 
the  extension  and  development  of  the  struggle  of  the 
insect.  The  latter  is  born  with  the  tools  of  the  working 
mason,  carpenter  or  moulder;  it  is  provided  with 
weapons  of  attack  and  defence.  Man  is  obliged  to 
make  these  for  himself." 

"  Fortunately  for  us,"  I  exclaimed.  "  We  are  not 
very  beautiful,  but  just  imagine  what  we  should  be 
like  if  we  were  ornamented  with  all  these  implements : 
the  mason  with  his  trowel,  the  warrior  with  his  darts 
and  his  lances." 

"  And  the  writer  with  his  pen,"  added  the  young 
man,  gaily. 

We  all  laughed  at  the  picture  suggested  to  our  minds. 

"  What  patience  an  entomologist  must  require  to  be 
able  to  explain,  as  Henri  Fabre  does,  all  that  the  run- 
ning backwards  and  forwards  of  a  beetle  means.  When 
I  was  reading  his  book,  I  wondered  whether  invisible 
eyes  were  not  gazing  into  our  human  cities  and  study- 
ing our  lives  in  the  same  way." 

"  I  had  the  same  idea." 


122    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

"  What  is  very  clear,  thanks  to  the  observations  of 
your  naturalist  of  Languedoc,"  put  in  the  Doctor,  "  is 
the  forethought  of  Nature  for  the  preservation  of  the 
species.  These  hatching  rooms,  all  varnished,  aired  and 
quite  hygienic,  which  the  insect  prepares  for  a  wretched 
little  larva!  It  is  amazing!  And  then  to  think  that 
man  does  not  know  how  to  do  the  same  thing  for  his 
progeny,  and  that  thousands  of  children  die,  thanks  to 
the  ignorance  of  their  parents.  It  is  perfectly  stupe- 
fying, for,  if  a  mere  larva  is  valuable  in  the  universe, 
ought  we  not  to  be  a  thousand  times  more  valuable 
still?" 

"  We  are,  you  may  be  sure  of  that.  The  Terrestrian 
has  to  learn  everything;  it  is  in  that  very  fact  that  his 
superiority  lies." 

"  Andros  read  us  the  part  about  the  love  affairs  of 

the  scorpions,"  said  Madame  X .  "  We  found  it 

most  entertaining  and  touching.  It  is  a  pity  that  they 
end  in  such  a  tragic  way.  The  scorpion  wife  eats  her 
husband.  Just  think  of  it !  " 

"  Well,  he  had  become  useless.  The  gods  discovered 
this  original  method  of  getting  rid  of  him." 

"  And  then,  too,  Mother,  the  scorpion  wife  eats  the 
body  of  her  husband,  but  not  his  soul,  and,  according 
to  Pierre  de  Coulevain,  the  soul  will  continue  progress- 
ing," said  the  young  man,  with  gentle  irony. 

"  No,  not  according  to  Pierre  de  Coulevain,  but 
according  to  the  laws  of  the  Universe.  Are  you 
not  beginning  to  believe  in  our  past  and  in  our 
future?" 

"  I  am." 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  123 

"  Well  then,  you  are  on  the  right  path.  Do  not 
leave  it." 

"  There  is  no  danger  of  that." 

All  through  the  Autumn,  I  wended  my  way  to  "  The 
Firs  "  when  the  weather  was  fine.  Each  time  I  went, 
my  affectionate  interest  increased,  and  I  always  re- 
turned from  my  visit  with  keener  sorrow.  I  felt  a 
kind  of  selfish  joy  in  the  idea  that  this  poor  doomed 
creature  was  not  my  son,  that  he  had  not  been  for  nine 
months  next  my  heart  and  for  twenty-six  years  within 
my  heart.  He  would  not  read  anything  now  but  Natu- 
ral History.  I  found  him  always  soaring,  as  it  were, 
above  this  earth,  thanks  to  his  investigations  into  the 
depths  of  vegetable  and  animal  life.  We  talked  about 
plants,  bees  and  ants,  and  he  said  over  and  over  again : 
"  If  I  had  not  been  ill,  I  should  never  have  known  about 
all  this !  "  Gradually  weaned  away  from  all  organised 
activity,  he  no  longer  saw  Death  confronting  him. 

Madame  X did  not  know  how  to  thank  me 

enough.  She  sent  me  flowers  and  fruit,  Roumanian 
preserves  and  preserved  citron  which  she  made  herself. 
When  I  left  Switzerland  in  January,  the  invalid  was 
in  one  of  those  extraordinary  stages  of  his  illness  when 
recovery  seems  possible.  Two  months  later,  he  died 
suddenly,  when  drinking  a  glass  of  champagne.  His 
young  cousin,  who  had  been  his  first  love,  was  with 
him.  Divine  mercy  was  shown  to  him  in  this  ending. 
His  poor  mother  who,  as  she  told  me  herself,  had  "  car- 
ried him  off  like  a  cat  carries  its  young  between  its 
teeth,"  took  him  back  to  Roumania  in  a  coffin.  She 
only  survived  him  a  few  months. 


184    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

And  the  author  who  had  been  the  unconscious  agent 
of  all  this  woe  is  an  excellent  man,  with  a  brilliant,  but 
vulgar,  mind.  He  had  probably  written  the  homicidal 
sentence  with  a  cigarette  between  his  lips  and  his  shoul- 
ders shaking  with  a  little  satisfied  laugh,  thinking  the 
passage  very  strong.  Yes,  with  just  a  few  words,  he 
had  killed  two  human  creatures.  It  was,  in  truth,  very 
strong ! 


CHAPTER  VI 

THERE  is  room  for  everything  in  the  marvellous  human 
motor  on  which  Nature  has  been  at  work  for  millions 
of  centuries  and  on  which  it  is  still  at  work.  There  is 
room  for  our  unconscious  dreams  when  asleep,  and  for 
the  conscious  dreams  of  our  waking  hours.  There  is 
room  for  the  artistic  dream,  for  the  dream  of  love  and 
for  the  great  metaphysical  dream. 

If  we  could,  I  will  not  say  think,  but  reflect  just  a 
very  little,  the  phenomenon  alone  which  constitutes  the 
romance  and  the  romance-writer  would  reveal  to  us  the 
profoundness  of  our  collaboration  in  the  divine  work 
and  our  true  role  of  predetermined  beings. 

It  would  seem  as  though  reality  produced  enough 
love,  grief,  illusions,  evil  and  good,  and  certainly  enough 
adultery.  It  appears  that  there  is  not  enough  though, 
and  that  we  must  have  all  this  artificially,  as  well.  The 
novelist  is  employed  to  collect  pictures,  gestures,  and 
a  thousand  different  grimaces,  impressions  and  sensa- 
tions, just  as  the  bee  collects  honey,  and  man  is  not 
more  free  than  the  bee  to  choose  the  fertilising  matter, 
for  it  must  produce  Life.  This  increase  of  psychical 
substance  creates,  within  the  lobes  of  the  novelist's 
brain,  films,  like  those  of  the  cinematographic  appa- 
ratus and,  by  means  of  these  films,  a  whole  fictitious 
world  is  elaborated,  the  waves  of  which  mingle  with 
those  of  the  real  world  and  increase  their  activity  to  a 

considerable  degree.     In  the  poem  or  the  romance,  man 

125 


126    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

imitates,  more  or  less  well,  the  work  of  the  gods.  Like 
them  he  multiplies  circumstances,  incidents,  coinci- 
dences, he  makes  knots  in  the  chain  of  Life,  which  he 
draws  up  tightly  in  an  artistic  way  and  loosens  again 
in  just  as  artistic  a  manner.  This  copy  is  part  of 
Nature  and  is  submitted,  like  Nature  itself,  to  laws  of 
harmony.  The  writer  cannot  put  down  on  paper 
pele-mt'le,  the  words,  sentences,  and  even  the  inspira- 
tions, that  crowd  together  at  the  back  of  his  forehead. 
In  order  to  obey  the  instinct  of  perfection  which  he  has 
within  him,  he  is  compelled  to  give  a  beautiful  form  to 
all  these.  Victor  Hugo  was  once  asked  whether  it  was 
easy  to  write  beautiful  verse.  He  replied:  "It  is 
either  very  easy  or  impossible."  Dante  found  it  easy, 
probably,  to  write  the  Divine  Comedyi  in  stanzas  of 
three  lines,  because  that  rhythm  had  been  assigned  to 
him.  The  hundred  songs  in  triplets,  the  technique  of 
which  is  admirable,  seem  to  come  out  of  some  mar- 
vellous phonographic  cylinder.  The  cylinder  certainly 
was  marvellous,  but  I  expect  that  he,  too,  did  not  write 
without  erasures.  What  a  miracle  those  erasures  rep- 
resent !  They  mean  that  the  cellules  of  our  brains  cor- 
rect themselves.  If  they  were  not  living  and  thinking 
cellules,  could  they  possibly  do  this?  Those  of  poor 
Guy  de  Maupassant,  when  he  himself  was  dying  and 
out  of  his  mind,  continued  to  seek  for  perfection,  strik- 
ing out  a  word  here  and  there  and  putting  another  one 
in  its  place.  I  do  not  know  anything  more  touching 
than  the  corrections  in  those  last  lines  that  he  wrote. 
They  made  my  warm  tears  flow.  I  do  not  think  any 
writer  could  look  at  them  with  dry  eyes. 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  127 

The  romances  of  the  real  world  are  always  stronger 
than  those  of  the  ideal  world,  but  they  make  less  im- 
pression on  us.  They  seem  farther  away  from  us,  lost, 
as  it  were,  in  the  universal  movement.  Poets  and  novel- 
ists, with  their  films,  circumscribe  action  and  give  an 
immediate  denouement,  which  more  or  less  satisfies  our 
sense  of  justice.  They  place  a  drop  of  life,  a  picture 
of  love,  for  instance,  under  a  magnifying  glass  and 
bring  it  so  near  to  us  that  we  can  follow  the  play  of  it 
and  feel  all  its  various  emotions.  More  or  less  endowed 
with  that  power  of  suggestion  of  which  we  know  so  lit- 
tle, they  succeed  in  making  us  live  for  ourselves  their 
dreams.  I  have  often  wished  that  it  could  be  given 
to  me  to  see,  grouped  together  and  made  flesh,  all  the 
personages  of  fables,  legends,  novels  and  of  the  meta- 
physical dream,  of  all  the  dreams  which  have  sprung 
from  the  human  brain.  Most  of  them  are,  undoubtedly, 
mere  puppets,  out  of  proportion  and  ill-balanced,  but 
there  are  also  figures  which  the  art  of  our  great  masters 
has  made  living  and  even  immortal.  Humanity  has 
adopted  these,  and  erne  generation  has  transmitted  them 
to  the  next  one.  Cinderella  and  Prince  Charming, 
dreamed  of  by  some  Egyptian  nurse,  are  as  old  as  the 
Pyramids. 

In  order  to  accomplish  this  miracle,  to  develop  their 
plans,  poets  and  novelists  have  nothing  but  words. 
Hamlet  said  disdainfully :  "  Words,  words  !  "  and  they 
are,  nevertheless,  most  formidable.  When  I  realise  their 
power,  I  feel  a  veritable  awe,  and  the  more  I  write,  the 
more  cautiously  do  I  handle  them.  Words  are  a  loaded 
weapon;  each  one  contains  a  fragment  of  the  soul  of 


128    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

ihe  world*  Science  will  not  contradict  me  there.  With 
words,  one  can  penetrate  minds,  affect  the  senses,  enter 
into  communion  with  one's  fellow-creatures,  with  the 
Bejond  even.  With  words,  one  can  make  love,  cause 
hatred,  do  good  or  evil,  move  masses  of  individuals, 
lead  them  on  to  death,  to  victory  or  to  defeat  and  in- 
crease or  lessen  the  strength  of  arms  and  hearts. 
There  are  words  which  are  immortal,  words  which  are 
endearing,  which  are  delightful  to  write,  as  a  sort  of 
subtle  voluptuousness  seems  to  emanate  from  them. 
Then  there  are  words  which  bite  like  acid  and  which 
burn  and  gnaw  like  radium.  Words  to  the  fabulator 
are  what  the  chisel  is  to  the  sculptor,  the  brush  to  the 
painter.  It  was  with  words  that  Homer  preserved  the 
pagan  dream  for  us  and  with  word«  that  he  immortalised 
Troy.  It  was  with  words  that  Dante  caught  the  soul 
of  the  Middle  Ages  and  that  he  transmitted  to  us  his 
most  poetical  figures,  such  as  that  of  the  Pia  Tolomei. 
In  a  few  lines,  he  succeeded  in  giving  us  the  impression 
of  a  faithless  wife,  relegated  by  her  husband  to  the 
Castle  of  Maremmes  and  killed  slowly  by  the  deadly  air 
of  the  surrounding  plain.  When  one  passes,  in  the 
train,  through  the  low-lying  district  which  skirts  the 
T3'rrhenian  Sea,  the  gentle  phantom  draws  us  to  the 
window  and  we  gaze  and  gaze  and  feel  its  presence  sub- 
jectively, thanks  to  having  read  the  words: 

"  Remember  me,  I  am  la  Pia 
Sienne  gave  me  birth,  Maremme  killed  me. 
Does  he  know  it,  he  who,  in  wedding  me,  put  on  my  finger 
his  gemmed  ring." 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  129 

With  words,  Shakespeare  created,  by  means  of  his 
Romeo  and  Juliet,  an  atmosphere  of  love  to  which  mul- 
titudes of  beings  have  vibrated  and  do  still  vibrate. 
With  words,  by  his  Lady  Macbeth,  he  created  an  atmos- 
phere of  terror,  the  suggestion  of  which  acts  on  us 
always,  and  this  seems  to  me  miraculous. 

From  my  earliest  childhood,  the  dictionary  interested 
me.  Did  I  know  then,  that  in  a  far,  far  distant  future, 
I  should  need  so  many  of  its  nouns,  its  adjectives  and 
its  verbs?  It  is  quite  possible  that  I  did  know  it,  for 
all  is  possible  in  the  great  mystery  which  we  ourselves 
are. 

Up  to  the  present,  the  dreams  of  novelists  have  only 
been  stories  of  love  and  war,  stories  that  have  lulled 
humanity  in  its  childhood  and  given  it  hours  of  rest  and 
f orgetfulness.  A  blessing  then  on  the  story-tellers ! 
Now  that  humanity  has  reached  the  adult  age,  nurses' 
stories  no  longer  suffice.  Humanity  is  blase  and  sick 
to  death  of  the  various'  emotions  provoked  by  the  con- 
jugation of  the  verb  to  love.  Formerly,  it  asked  for 
love  and  always  for  love;  at  present,  it  asks  for  ideas 
and  always  for  ideas,  as  aliments  for  its  thought.  It 
has  become  aware  of  the  mystery  in  the  midst  of  which 
it  lives,  and  it  is  disturbed  by  this,  anxious  and  curious 
about  it.  It  wants  to  be  charmed  and  interested  by 
truth  now,  and  no  longer  by  fables.  If  it  be  true  that 
the  demand  creates  the  function,  then  story-tellers  will 
become  novelists.  The  novelist  will  have  to  acquire  an 
infinite  amount  of  knowledge.  He  will  walk  hand  in 
hand  with  science  and  will  enter  into  the  struggle  for 


130    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

progress  and  right.  This  evolution  of  the  story  into 
the  novel  commenced  farther  back  than  we  imagine. 
Zola  was  one  of  its  precursors  and  it  would  seem  as 
though  he  stopped  it  again.  Nature  frequently  has 
these  instances  of  falling  back.  Zola  was  not  under- 
stood, or  rather  he  was  wrongly  understood,  which  is 
worse.  He  had  neither  the  genius  which  purifies,  the 
spirituality  which  elevates,  nor  the  intuition  of  the 
sovereign  end  and  object.  His  novels  are  painful,  in- 
tense with  reality.  Some  of  them  are  nauseating. 
Pot-Bouille  affected  my  sense  of  smell  to  such  a  degree 
that  I  was  obliged  to  throw  it  away.  Its  pictures  of 
low  life  caused  people  with  the  slightest  refinement  abso- 
lute disgust;  but  among  the  majority  of  readers,  and 
particularly  among  younger  ones,  they  roused  the 
animality  in  their  nature.  The  rousing  of  this  animal- 
ity  has  the  instantaneous  effect  of  disarming  the  indi- 
vidual, and  of  making  the  reaction  of  good  difficult  or 
impossible.  In  this  alone,  Zola's  books  were  immoral. 
If  humanity  held  its  head  up  higher  than  its  lower 
parts,  the  sight  of  all  ugliness  would  make  it  love  beauty 
still  more.  Humanity  has  not  yet  reached  that  stage. 
The  last  page  of  Nona,  for  instance,  is  a  warning  of 
the  highest  importance.  Nana,  that  product  of  alco- 
holism, poisoned  by  her  own  vice  and  the  vice  of  others, 
Nana  is  dying  in  a  modern  caravansary,  whilst  the 
young  generation  she  has  corrupted  and  prepared  for 
defeat,  files  by,  under  her  windows  shouting:  "To 
Berlin  !  To  Berlin  !  "  and  it  marches  to  Sedan  !  In  my 
opinion,  that  is  the  strongest  and  most  tragic  lesson 
that  any  moralist  has  ever  conceived.  I  should  like  that 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  131 

page  to  be  pinned  up  in  the  bedroom  of  every  student. 
The  hour  of  Justice  will  strike  some  day  for  Zola. 

After  the  novel  of  the  deep  abysses,  we  have  had  the 
novel  of  the  high  summits.  We  owe  this  to  Camille 
Flammarion.  Camille  Flammarion!  Novelists  do  not 
recognise  him  as  one  of  them  and  astronomers  still  less 
than  the  novelists.  What  is  he  then?  He  is  just  him- 
self —  a  poet  who  has  science,  and  a  savant  who  has 
poetry,  at  his  command. 

At  present,  great  doctors  diagnose  and  prescribe 
without  sounding  their  patients,  without  feeling  their 
pulses  and  without  knowing  the  colour  of  their  tongues. 
In  the  same  way,  certain  astronomers,  in  order  to  study 
the  stars,  turn  their  backs  on  them.  By  means  of  lines, 
figures  and  numbers,  written  on  paper,  they  can  tell 
their  positions,  their  dimensions  and  follow  their  course 
through  the  infinite.  We  have  telegraphy  without 
wires,  speech  without  the  man,  we  shall  soon  have  the 
science  of  medicine  without  doctors,  and  astronomy 
without  astronomers.  As  for  Camille  Flammarion,  he 
has  been  contemplating  the  celestial  field,  in  which  we 
are  evolving,  for  a  long  time,  and  he  has  the  boldness1 
to  imagine  that,  since  our  little  planet  is  inhabited,  all 
habitable  worlds  are  inhabited  also,  and  that  these  lumi- 
nous spheres,  like  our  own,  are  merely  the  houses  of 
the  Eternal  God,  the  different  homes  of  the  beings  who 
mount  the  symbolic  ladder,  our  future  homes  no  doubt. 
This  was  not  science,  but  intuition,  that  kind  of  in- 
tuition which  made  the  sacred  poet  say  in  one  of  his 
psalms :  "  He  made  of  the  winds  his  messengers  and 
of  the  fiery  flames  his  servants."  And  to  these  living 


132    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

notes  of  the  concert  of  the  Universe,  Flammarion  lis- 
tened with  his  imagination,  as  a  Terrestrian,  alert,  but 
his  imagination  played  him  false.  His  dreams  are  like 
those  of  mediums.  They  are  a  disconcerting  medley 
of  scientific  truth,  of  elevated  idealism  and  of  coarse 
sensuality.  He  took  liberties  with  Urania,  the  memory 
of  which  amused  me  when  I  found  myself  in  the  pres- 
ence of  that  Muse  at  Rome,  for  her  statue  has  an  ex- 
pression of  serenity  which  is  truly  celestial.  The  as- 
tronomer-poet attempted  a  flight  which  is  impossible 
at  present,  and  he  fell  to  earth  somewhat  disastrously, 
but  his  effort  has  not  been  in  vain.  He  drew  some 
very  noble  minds  away  from  materialism.  Men  are  the 
only  creatures  on  our  earth  which  can  look  at  the  sky, 
and  for  the  great  majority  of  them  the  sky  is  only  a 
barometer  and  a  thermometer  at  present. 

A  barometer  and  a  thermometer,  this  plan  of  the 
Universe  all  strewn  with  living  stars !  One  feels  a  cer- 
tain shame  in  having  to  own  this.  Flammarion,  by 
popularising  astronomy,  has  put  us  in  touch  with  the 
visible  Beyond.  He  has  taught  us  to  look  there,  not 
only  for  forecasts  of  good  and  bad  weather,  but  for 
consolation  and  hope.  He  has  done  more  for  us,  per- 
haps, than  the  savants  have,  with  their  parallels,  their 
angles  and  their  figures.  The  hour  of  Justice  will 
strike  for  him  too. 

The  evolution  of  romantic  literature  is  going  on,  in 
the  same  way,  in  England.  Great  novelists  are  coura- 
geously facing  philosophical  questions.  One  of  them, 
Wells,  is  the  most  colossal  and  fantastical  genius  of 
our  epoch;  an  apocalyptical  genius,  such  as  only  the 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE          133 

Anglo-Saxon  race  and  the  country  of  the  Bible  could 
produce.  His  novels  give  a  terrifying  impression  of 
chaos,  of  a  chaos  over  which  the  Spirit  of  God  has  not 
yet  moved.  From  his  ark,  beaten  by  the  waves,  he 
sends  out  the  dove,  but  it  comes  back  always,  as  it  dis- 
covers no  summit  on  which  to  rest.  This  does  not  mat- 
ter, as,  by  showing  us  the  play  of  the  forces  of  Life,  he 
gives  us  an  idea  of  its  value,  and  that  is  a  great  deal. 
In  my  opinion,  Zola,  Flammarion  and  Wells  have  had 
the  conception  of  what  the  modern  novel  should  be  and 
I  only  hope  that  their  example  may  be  followed. 

Poets  and  novelists  excite  less  enthusiasm  than  mu- 
sicians, but  more  admiration  and  curiosity,  as  they 
create  more  emotions.  Women  are  given  to  imagining 
that  they  must  feel  more  intensely  and  do  things  in  a 
more  remarkable  way  than  ordinary  mortals.  That 
may  be,  but  there  is  always  something  artificial  about 
their  feelings  and  doings  —  they  are  rarely  unpub- 
lished, they  either  have  served  or  will  serve  for  copy. 
As  for  the  fabulators,  everything  is  a  subject  for  copy 
for  them,  their  own  love  affairs  and  their  own  sorrows 
included.  Thanks  to  the  duality  which  takes  place  in 
their  mind,  they  can  watch  themselves  living,  loving 
and  suffering,  and  they  feel  a  special  kind  of  voluptu- 
ousness in  relating  all  this.  In  saying  this,  I  am  be- 
traying the  secret  of  the  brotherhood,  but  truth  seems 
to  me  more  wonderful  than  illusion.  Poets  and  novel- 
ists are  rarely  the  men  of  their  books ;  their  books  are 
merely  their  dreams.  When  they  come  out  of  their 
dreams,  they  are  quite  astonished  to  find  on  paper  a 
whole  crowd  of  beautiful  things,  and  sometimes  of  very 


134          THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

ugly  things,  which  seem  to  them  quite  foreign  to  their 
own  nature.  The  *'  Self,"  that  poor  little  embryo  of 
individuality  which  we  all  possess,  experiences  the  re- 
actions of  a  scholar  set  free.  The  author,  who  has 
made  his  personages  keep  up  a  brilliant  dialogue,  be- 
comes so  taciturn  that  he  appears  stupid ;  the  one  who 
has  been  very  serious  and  given  to  moralising  enjoys 
being  frivolous ;  the  one  who  has  spoken  with  warmth 
of  humanitarianism,  of  fraternity,  acts  like  a  regular 
egoist.  All  this  is  always  a  disillusion  for  the  ad- 
mirers of  the  writer,  and  frequently  for  the  writer  him- 
self. It  sometimes  happens  that,  by  auto-suggestion, 
the  dream  acts  on  the  dreamer  and  makes  him  better 
or  worse  than  he  was.  The  two  that  I  call  "  the  Other 
One "  and  "  Self "  act  upon  each  other  mutually. 
When  there  is  complete  harmony  between  them,  their 
work  gets  the  full  and  right  note  of  perfect  harmony 
and  that  is  very  fine. 

Last  year  I  read  a  novel  by  a  foreign  author,  in 
which  there  were  some  wonderful  pages  of  great  depth 
and  intuition.  There  were  also  some  pages  that  were 
filthy,  worthy  of  a  gutter-cat  in  the  spring  time ;  homi- 
cidal pages  like  those  which  killed  Andros  X ,  and 

I  was  astonished  at  this  lack  of  harmony.  A  few  days 
later,  an  English  lady  told  me  triumphantly  that  this 
author  was  to  dine  that  evening,  with  her  and  her  daugh- 
ter, at  our  hotel.  I  chose  my  seat  at  table,  so  that  I 
might  observe  this  man.  His  personal  appearance  gave 
me  a  shock.  He  was  small  and  puny,  with  very  little 
hair  on  his  head,  his  face  was  narrow  and  pallid,  his 
eyes  shone  and  he  had  a  suspicion  of  moustache.  His 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  135 

general  appearance,  set  off  by  a  large  forehead,  gave 
me  the  impression  of  a  something  cloven,  and  viciously 
refined.  When  he  talked  with  his  hostess,  his  expres- 
sion was  not  in  the  least  animated,  but  when  he  spoke  to 
the  daughter,  who  was  young  and  pretty,  his  face 
lighted  up.  For  a  few  moments,  I  turned  him  over  and 
over  again  in  my  mind.  He  was  disconcerting,  as  all 
hybrid  beings  are,  and  then,  all  at  once,  I  said  to  myself : 
"  Why,  he  is  a  faun,  a  literary  faun ! "  And  then,  re- 
calling the  magnificent  waves  of  his  poetry,  I  added: 
"A  faun  of  genius."  I  understood  then  the  strange- 
ness of  his  work  and  of  his  character.  The  women  on 
whom  his  magnetism  acts  must  be  neurasthenic  she- 
fauns. 

I  ought  to  be  able  to  pierce  the  mystery  of  which 
my  own  brain  is  the  theatre.  I  cannot  do  this  though. 
In  order  to  keep  certain  secrets,  Nature  imitates  the 
cuttle-fish.  She  flings  around  these  secrets  a  dense 
cloud,  and,  just  when  we  think  we  have  seized  them,  they 
escape.  Life  is  an  eternal  game  of  hide  and  seek. 

Are  poets  and  novelists  the  favourites  of  the  gods, 
as  the  Ancients  used  to  maintain  ?  I  should  say,  rather, 
that  they  are  their  martyrs.  Usually,  if  they  are 
richly  gifted,  they  are  poorly  enough  endowed  with  this 
world's  goods.  They  have  to  dream  in  order  to  live, 
and  to  live  in  order  to  dream.  They  have  to  be  spurred 
on  by  the  need  of  daily  bread,  or  by  ambition  for  glory, 
as  there  is  an  innate  laziness  within  them,  a  sort  of 
hypnotic  laziness,  which  prevents  them  from  taking  up 
the  pen.  These  dreamers  are  worked  upon,  until  they 
are  almost  torn  to  pieces,  by  the  forces  of  reality  and 


136     THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

the  forces  of  the  ideal  to  which  they  belong.  It  is 
quite  in  vain  that  they  isolate  themselves  and  that  they 
close  their  door  to  every  one,  the  realities  of  life  always 
reach  them.  It  may  be  in  the  form  of  anxiety  about 
money  matters,  or  the  remembrance  of  unjust  criticism; 
it  may  be  that  the  calls  of  love,  friendship  or  amuse- 
ments, like  so  many  invisible  arrows,  cross  their  dream 
and  very  frequently  break  its  charm,  or  its  thread. 
Nothing  is  more  painful  than  this.  When  the  realities 
have  won  them  over,  the  ideal  claims  them  again. 
Their  heroes  and  their  heroines  pursue  them  as  far  as 
the  very  privacy  of  their  life  and,  promising  them  glory 
and  wealth,  bring  them  back,  whether  they  will  or  not, 
to  the  unreal  world.  All  this  creates  constant  strug- 
gle which  is  infinitely  painful.  Only  those  who  wear 
the  medals  know  what  is  on  the  other  side  of  them. 
This  is  fortunate,  as  the  other  side  of  these  medals 
would  cause  the  envious  too  much  pleasure.  The  other 
side  of  success  is  more  often  than  not  hard  for  poets 
and  novelists.  When  they  are  once  free  of  material 
anxiety,  there  is  the  anxiety  about  their  renown  and 
renown  is  a  young  person  whose  maintenance  costs  a 
great  deal.  If  she  is  not  well  fed,  instead  of  putting 
the  trumpet  in  her  mouth  and  playing  a  sublime  air, 
she  turns  it  upside  down.  The  writer  who  has  become 
famous  has  to  give  himself  away  in  a  thousand  different 
manners.  He  must  give  autographs,  effigies,  pleasant 
little  speeches,  and  he  has  the  sensation,  all  the  time,  of 
being  cut  up  into  slices  and  into  pieces.  He  belongs 
to  the  chroniclers,  to  the  journalists,  to  the  biographers, 
like  any  ordinary  criminal.  Because  he  has  committed 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  137 

a  few  volumes^,  the  public  considers  that  it  has  the  right 
to  know  all  about  his  past,  his  character  and  his  tastes. 
When  he  no  longer  has  life  for  defending  himself  against 
this  childish  curiosity,  his  secret  drawers  are  broken 
open  and  his  private  correspondence  is  found.  His 
weaknesses  and  his  failings  are  published  pitilessly. 
His  friends,  and  even  his  family,  are  sometimes  the  ac- 
complices of  this  profanation.  Respect  for  the  dead 
is  not  yet  known  in  our  civilised  society.  Men  take 
off  their  hats  before  the  body  which  has  become  inert, 
and  the  gesture  is  beautiful,  but  the  soul,  which  is  still 
living,  is,  offended  unscrupulously.  Lecturers,  for  in- 
stance, instead  of  directing  the  attention  of  their  lis- 
teners to  the  work  of  the  author  who  is  no  longer  there, 
to  the  effort  it  represents  and  to  the  mystery  that  it  con- 
tains, dwell  chiefly  on  the  psychology  of  love  and  he  who 
makes  the  dead  talk  has  it  all  his  own  way.  I  heard 
one  of  these  men  examine  for  more  than  an  hour,  trying 
all  kinds  of  effects  himself  with  his  eyes,  moustache  and 
hands,  the  question  as  to  whether  a  certain  author  had 
loved  a  woman  platonically  or  otherwise.  The  idea 
of  this  living  man,  young  and  very  much  in  the  flesh, 
seated  there  before  a  table  with  his  glass  of  water  in 
front  of  him,  calling  up  to  judgment  a  great  man  who 
was  dead,  not  to  thank  him  for  what  he  had  done  for 
humanity,  but  to  drag  out  of  him  the  poor  little  se- 
cret which  he  had  so  gallantly  kept  to  himself!  It 
was  grotesque  enough  to  make  one  laugh  and  cry.  I 
regretted  that  there  was  no  law  to  punish  the  violation 
of  a  man's  life,  as  there  is  to  punish  the  violation  of 
his  tomb. 


138    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

And  these  celebrities,  like  millionaires,  are  very 
rarely  loved  for  themselves.  They  are  sought  out,  not 
on  account  of  their  genius,  or  their  personal  qualities, 
but  on  account  of  the  prestige  they  have  won,  because 
intimacy  with  them  gives  a  sort  of  reflected  light  — 
that  light  which  snobs  of  all  kinds  seek.  And  the  day 
when  they  have  let  some  weakness  be  seen  in  the  arena, 
their  prestige  will  diminish  and  very  soon  they  will  only 
see  the  shoulders  of  their  admirers. 

Poets  and  novelists  are,  nevertheless,  said  to  be  the 
favourites  of  the  gods!  It  is  not  so,  though,  for  the 
higher  gifts  they  have  received  create  in  them  hopeless 
weaknesses.  They  have  nerves,  but  no  muscles,  nerves 
which  are  always  kept  at  high  tension  by  thought,  thus 
making  them  ridiculously  sensitive  to  physical  and  moral 
suffering.  A  pin-prick  is  to  them  what  a  dagger- 
thrust  would  be  to  ordinary  creatures.  Like  all  sub- 
jectives,  and  they  are  subjective  in  the  highest  degree, 
they  have  great  vanity.  They  always  require  homage 
and  they  must  feed,  with  their  own  substance,  the  fire 
on  which  the  public  will  throw  grains  of  incense. 
Many  of  them  lose  their  heads  with  success.  They  are 
not  content  with  praise,  but  must  have  adulation  and 
flattery.  This  adulterated  wine  intoxicates  them,  so 
that  their  dreams  become  incoherent  and  very  often 
their  genius  is  killed.  Generally  speaking,  poets  and 
novelists  know  nothing  either  of  life  or  of  men,  and  still 
less  of  women,  who,  in  hope  of  becoming  the  heroines  of 
books,  frequently  pose  to  them.  They  commenced 
writing  very  young,  before  they  could  read,  that  is,  be- 
fore they  were  able  to  observe,  and  they  continue  study- 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  139 

ing  psychology  shut  up  in  their  own  room,  by  the  light 
of  any  intuitions  which  may  come  to  them.  When  they 
rouse  up  from  their  dreams,  they  are  more  or  less  daz- 
zled, they  cannot  see  things  as  they  are  and  they  are 
deceived  and  taken  in  like  children.  Providence,  who 
knows  how  defenceless  her  authors  are,  frequently  places 
near  them  some  devoted  woman  to  encourage  and  pro- 
tect them.  There  is  less  of  this  solicitude  shown 
towards  women  novelists  though.  Providence  leaves 
them  to  get  through  their  difficulties  alone.  This  is 
very  flattering,  but  rather  hard.  When  they  are  young 
and  pretty,  they  can  easily  find  masculine  hands  to 
push  the  brambles  back  along  their  path.  They  have 
to  pay  for  such  services  —  in  kind  —  and  this  costs 
them  a  great  deal. 

To  sum  up  briefly,  the  makers  of  the  knots,  the 
makers  of  the  ideal  world,  are  very  ordinary  beings  who 
do  extraordinary  work ;  and  this  means  considerable 
effort.  The  only  ones  to  be  pitied,  though,  are  those 
who  cannot  make  this  effort,  those  who  are  born  with 
the  ambition  for  taking  long  flights  and  have  only  re- 
ceived pinions.  They  start  —  oh,  they  always  start  — 
but  they  cannot  mount.  After  hovering  round  a  little, 
they  are  obliged  to  touch  earth  again,  and  it  sometimes 
happens  that  they  are  killed  in  touching  earth.  Their 
dreams  are  not  understood  and  are  so  imperfect  that 
they  cannot  get  into  the  current  of  literature,  conse- 
quently they  never  come  to  anything.  The  dreams 
cause  these  dreamers  to  be  disgusted  with  the  realities  of 
life  and  unfit  them  for  material  struggle,  so  that  they 
are  the  vanquished  ones.  The  conquerors  of  to-day 


140    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

were,  perhaps,  the  vanquished  ones  of  yore,  and  in  the 
vanquished  ones  of  to-day,  we  must  salute  the  conquer- 
ors of  the  future.  In  the  meantime,  though,  they  suffer 
cruelly.  I  can  quite  imagine  this,  for  I  once  experi- 
enced the  sensation  of  being  blackballed.  The  Editor 
of  a  review,  who,  it  appears,  was  rather  short-sighted 
that  day,  refused  one  of  my  novels.  On  seeing  the 
manuscript  come  back  to  the  table  on  which  it  had  been 
written,  I  felt  a  special  kind  of  suffering  which  I  had 
not  hitherto  experienced,  a  suffering  which  did  not 
weigh  on  my  lieart,  but  only  on  my  brain  and  which 
seemed,  figuratively  speaking,  to  paralyse  my  arms  and 
legs.  It  was  atrocious!  In  spite  of  the  very  evident 
revenge  I  have  had,  the  thought  of  it  still  annoys  me 
and  I  fancy  that  I  am  giving  way  to  paltry  spite  in 
telling  about  it. 

Some  of  my  unknown  correspondents,  I  have  felt  to 
be  poets  or  novelists.  They  were  not  the  happy  ones, 
but  poor,  anxious,  tortured  souls.  More  than  a  year 
ago,  I  received  a  letter  from  a  woman  in  one  of  the  Eng- 
lish colonies.  The  impression  which  it  gave  me  will 
never  be  obliterated.  After  apologising  for  her  indis- 
cretion and  saying  all  kinds  of  pleasant  things  in 
French,  which  she  did  not  write  easily,  she  continued  in 
her  own  language :  "  I  am  writing  to  you  from  a  far- 
off,  blazingly  hot  station  of  the  United  Provinces  of 
India.  My  husband  and  I  often  drive  to  a  little 
charred  station,  simply  to  watch  the  trains  pass  by. 
Last  week,  we  went  there  to  see  a  friend  who  was  pass- 
ing through.  He  had  grown  thin,  and  his  face  was 
bronzed  and  tired  looking.  He  got  out  of  his  compart- 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE    141 

ment  and  we  clasped  hands  in  silence.  e  I  have  brought 
you  some  joy,'  he  said,  giving  me  a  yellow-covered 
book.  It  was  your  book,"  my  letter  went  on.  "  A 
few  short  minutes  and  then  he  got  into  his  compartment 
again.  The  train,  which  was  to  carry  him  away,  glided 
along  the  rails,  slowly  at  first,  then  faster  and  still 
more  fast,  until  it  finally  disappeared.  The  meeting 
had  taken  place.  When  will  it  take  place  again? 
These  meetings  of  friends  are  events  in  our  lives,  they 
are  the  pools  of  water  in  the  desert !  " 

How  much  there  was  in  these  few  lines !  They  com- 
municated to  me  the  homesickness  of  this  exiled  couple, 
transplanted  from  a  land  of  verdure  to  the  confines  of 
an  Indian  desert.  I  saw  them  driving  along  against  a 
background  of  burnt-up  desolation,  and  returning  to 
their  bungalow  in  gloomy  silence.  I  felt  that  their 
thirst  had  not  been  quenched  by  the  drop  of  water  they 
had  drunk,  and  every  time  that  their  picture  came  on  to 
my  screen,  I  felt  a  pang  of  sympathy  at  my  heart. 
My  correspondent  must  possess  the  magnetism  of  the 
writer  to  have  produced  so  durable  an  effect.  I  was 
tempted  to  tell  her  this,  but,  out  of  prudence,  I  re- 
frained. It  often  happens  that  Nature  puts  certain 
germs  of  art  into  a  human  brain  quite  intentionally. 
When  the  sap  mounts,  thanks  either  to  love  or  grief, 
these  germs  may  produce  a  few  beautiful  pages  of 
poetry  or  of  prose,  but  these  are  just  will-o'-the-wisps. 
Authors  to  whom  they  write  tell  them  that  they  are 
born  poets  or  novelists,  thus  creating  wrong  vocations 
which  lead  to  intellectual  disasters. 

This  same  incomprehensible  Nature  had  behaved  to 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

me  in  a  strange  way,  which  I  no  longer  dare  call  cruel, 
but  which  was  cruel  nevertheless.  It  had  given  me  a 
fairly  complete  set  of  literary  cellules,  and  I  was  not 
allowed  to  use  them.  Consequently,  during  three  quar- 
ters of  my  existence,  they  were  sterile.  At  present,  I 
realise  that,  although  they  were  sterile,  they  were  not 
inactive.  They  were  always  catching  impressions  and 
pictures,  amassing  an  enormous  amount  of  material  and, 
at  the  appointed  time,  they  produced  —  what  they  were 
intended  to  produce.  They  made  my  childhood  strange 
and  odd,  my  growing  up  difficult  and  my  girlhood  pain- 
ful. They  inspired  me  with  unlimited  ambition,  and 
with  a  need  of  beauty,  luxury  and  comfort  which  I  could 
not  satisfy.  They  affected  my  character  and  my  des- 
tiny. They  might  have  played  some  bad  tricks  on  me 
if  other  forces,  perfect  physical  balance,  a  gaiety  that 
was  always  triumphant  anc^  a  sense  of  humour,  had  not 
held  them  in  check.  They  made  things  uncomfortable, 
but  amusing;  thanks  to  them  I  never  knew  what  it  was 
to  be  bored  and  they  always  kept  me  company.  They 
were  able  to  make  me  cerebrally  romantic,  but  not  sen- 
timentally romantic,  and  it  is  to  this  that  I  owe  my 
salvation.  They  were  responsible,  I  fancy,  for  some- 
thing very  foolish,  of  which  I  was  ashamed  for  a  long 
time  and  which  I  can  explain  to  myself  now. 

In  the  first  half  of  last  century,  a  pleiad  of  poets, 
the  neurasthenic  poets  of  those  days,  had  introduced 
a  sort  of  morbid  melancholy  into  literature.  Our 
mothers  had  drunk  of  this  literature  to  their  soul's 
content,  and  they  transmitted  it  to  us.  Millevoye's 
Fcuillfs  Mortet  had  brought  consumption  into  vogue  as 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  143 

an  illness.  We  were  ashametl  of  our  fresh  complexions 
and  of  our  robust  health ;  we  drank  vinegar  in  order  to 
be  pale  and  we  were  in  love  with  death,  instead  of  being 
in  love  with  life.  Towards  my  fifteenth  year  (at  that 
critical  age  girls  are  capable  of  anything),  I  began  to 
cough,  with  the  hope  of  dying  of  consumption.  The 
idea  of  dying  of  consumption  seemed  interesting  and 
beautiful  to  me.  I  am  quite  sure  I  should  not  have 
been  fascinated  by  the  idea  of  dying  of  tuberculosis. 
What  a  power  there  is  in  words!  Without  troubling 
about  the  anxiety  I  was  causing  my  mother,  I  con- 
tinued this  cruel  game  for  some  time.  One  day  when 
I  was  kneeling  at  the  confessional,  and  about  to  ask 
for  absolution,  I  coughed  as  I  was  in  the  habit  of 
doing,  but  a  sudden  fit  of  laughter  interrupted  my 
cough.  The  absurdity  of  the  comedy  I  was  playing 
had  just  struck  me.  I  laughed  and  blushed  for  myself, 
with  one  of  those  deep  blushes,  the  sensation  of  which 
one  does  not  forget  easily.  While  I  was  about  it,  I 
ought  to  have  confessed  my  long  lie,  but  I  had  not  the 
courage  to  do  this,  and  I  regret  it  to  this  day.  How- 
ever that  may  be,  I  was  thoroughly  cured  of  the  folly 
which  had  been  engendered  by  the  Shelleyism  and  the 
Byronism  I  had  absorbed. 

I  still  have  a  psychological  document  of  my  early 
girlhood.  It  reflects  the  mentality  of  the  epoch  and  it 
shows,  too,  that,  from  our  earliest  days,  we  have  within 
us  the  germ  of  our  respective  vocations.  This  docu- 
ment is  an  exercise  book  containing  my  compositions 
at  the  age  of  fifteen.  It  seems  to  me  miraculous  that  I 
should  still  have  it.  It  has  escaped  several  disasters 


H4          THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

and  my  mania  for  throwing  away  all  that  is  in  my  way. 
It  has  been  taken  from  the  bottom  of  one  trunk  and  put 
into  another  one  times  without  number,  without  get- 
ting lost.  It  was,  no  doubt,  intended  to  serve  in  some 
way.  Tilings,  like  men,  are  indestructible  until  they 
have  given  to  Life  what  they  were  intended  to  give, 
even-  if  this  be  only  an  impression.  This  little  school- 
girl's exercise-book,  the  ancestor  of  the  little  exercise 
books  I  have  always  used,  as  a  writer,  is  quite  yellow 
with  age,  just  as  I  am  myself.  We  have  turned  yel- 
low together.  The  golden  sand  which  dried  the  ink  is 
still  adhering  to  it.  The  characters  are  microscopic, 
but  very  firmly  written.  They  look  so  ancient  and 
comic  with  their  curly  letters.  At  first  sight,  they  seem 
to  have  no  relation  at  all  to  my  big,  modern  hand-writ- 
ing. On  examining  them  carefully,  though,  one  recog- 
nises that  they  are  produced  by  the  same  hand.  In 
this  little  book  there  are  the  following  sketches:  The 
Story  of  a  Cat  told  by  Itself,  A  Story  (I  had 
probably  not  been  able  to  find  a  title  for  this  one),  A 
Schoolgirl's  Day,  and  The  Story  of  a  Violet.  The  con- 
struction of  these  inventions  is  very  good,  the  charac- 
ters are  not  badly  drawn,  the  dialogue  is  lively  and 
natural,  so  that  dialogue  is  evidently  my  strong  point. 
My  sentences  are  short,  although  there  are  too  many 
adjectives  in  them.  In  those  days,  adjectives  reigned 
supreme.  Some  of  these  are  no  longer  in  favour  to- 
day, but  they  are  used  frequently  in  my  stories.  "  In- 
describable "  is  one  of  these  and  the  word  "  suave," 
which  we  used  to  think  delightful  to  write.  Nowadays 
we  are  apt  to  put  "  exquisite "  and  "  adorable  "  for 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  145 

everything.  I  am  studying,  with  the  greatest  curi- 
osity, the  figures  and  scenes  which  must  have  been 
formed  behind  my  childish  forehead.  They  belong  es- 
sentially to  their  epoch.  I  come  across  the  most  aston- 
ishing phrases,  such,  for  instance,  as :  "  Obedience  is 
only  sweet  when  the  heart  commands  it."  "  Happy  is 
he  who  has  his  tomb  in  the  same  place  as  his  cradle." 
Where  could  I  have  found  all  that  I  wonder?  Then, 
too,  I  marry  one  of  my  heroines  and  I  say  of  her: 
"  She  has  the  radiant  brightness  of  love  on  her  face." 
Where  can  I  have  come  across  love?  She  marries  a 
naval  officer.  In  our  dreams,  naval  officers  occupied 
a  large  place  in  those  days.  At  present  they  are  out 
of  date,  but  they  can  be  quite  easy  in  their  minds,  as 
they  will  come  into  favour  again.  This  officer,  M.  d'El- 
bene,  goes  back  to  sea  after  being  married  two  months. 
He  remains  absent  five  years  and,  on  returning  home, 
he  finds  there  the  three  little  children  God  has  sent  him, 
by  way  of  making  up  to  him  for  his  exile.  I  am  only 
surprised  that  I  did  not  put  half  a  dozen  while  I  was 
about  it.  This  is  how  I  wrote  history  at  the  age  of 
fifteen.  On  reading  this  epilogue  of  mine  again,  I 
laughed,  but  my  eyes  were  full  of  tears.  I  saw,  with  a 
certain  pleasure,  that,  through  all  this  heap  of  rubbish 
and  commonplace,  the  modern  spirit  made  its  way  here 
and  there.  I  found,  too,  a  surprising  knowledge  of  the 
human  heart.  I  might  have  been  an  old  inhabitant  of 
this  world.  Here  and  there,  these  imaginative  writings 
disgust  me.  They  reveal  a  good,  loving,  pious  soul, 
which  had  nothing  in  common  with  the  undisciplined, 
critical,  brusque  little  girl  that  I  was.  Was  I  then 


146    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

deliberately  playing  the  hypocrite?  No,  I  was  quite 
incapable  of  that  at  all  ages  of  my  life.  What  does  it 
mean  then?  It  simply  means  that  my  individuality 
was  not  yet  developed  and  I  was  affected  by  the  sub- 
jective, sentimental  soul  of  the  epoch,  by  its  childish 
and  conventional  ideal.  In  A  Schoolgirl'*  Day,  I  recog- 
nise my  true  self.  I  was  quite  natural  in  this,  daring 
and  gay,  and  I  exclaim :  "  Life  is  so  beautiful,  I 
should  like  to  live  a  long,  long  time."  The  Story  of  a 
Cat  stupefied  me  and  I  have  not  yet  recovered  from  my 
amazement.  This  story,  from  one  end  to  the  other, 
was  to  be  my  own  story.  Did  the  subconscious  part  of 
me  know  this?  It  is  quite  possible.  After  rereading 
these  pages,  written  in  my  girlhood,  I  was  both  touched 
and  furious  and  I  exclaimed  aloud:  "Little  goose,  in- 
stead of  talking  of  love  and  marriage,  why  did  you  not 
watch  the  insects,  the  birds  and  the  flowers ! "  Alas, 
the  little  goose  had  to  be  forty  years  older  before  she 
learnt  to  watch  and  to  see  the  insects,  the  birds  and  the 
flowers.  Her  eye  had  to  be  born  again. 

I  had  often  wondered  how  it  was  that  I  did  not  begin 
to  write  at  an  earlier  age,  when  everything  seemed  to 
point  to  that  for  me.  This  poor  little  exercise-book, 
showing  me  a  sample  of  my  early  mentality,  explained 
this  to  me.  It  was  to  serve  for  this  end.  It  has  served, 
so  that  I  can  now  burn  it.  Before  putting  the  pen  be- 
tween my  fingers,  Nature  was  obliged  to  prepare  my 
brain  to  receive  the  ideas  it  was  to  transmit.  If  I  had 
written  with  my  subjective  mind  of  former  days,  I 
should  have  spoken  of  Life  with  as  much  knowledge  as 
I  spoke  of  marriage  at  the  age  of  fifteen.  The  children 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  147 

of  my  early  life  would  have  been  born  old,  and  I  should 
be  ashamed  of  them  at  present.  The  children  of  my 
old  age  were  born  young  and  I  am  rather  proud  of 
them,  of  the  last  one  more  particularly,  because  it  is 
the  youngest  and  the  most  modern  of  all  of  them,  be- 
cause, with  this  last  one,  I  plunged  into  the  future,  into 
the  future  that  I  shall  not  see.  On  leaving  Paris,  I 
left  the  manuscript  with  my  publishers  and  I  corrected 
my  proofs  here.  When  the  galley-proofs  arrived,  I 
pressed  them  to  me  with  an  emotion  that  was  rather 
ridiculous.  If  only  the  type-setters  could  have  seen 
me!  I  felt  that  I  was  certainly  the  mother  of  this 
thing.  The  mother  —  yes  —  but  who  was  the  father? 
I  should  like  to  know  that!  Ruminating  a  book  had 
never  caused  me  as  much  anguish,  nor  yet  as  much 
pleasure.  Every  minute,  as  I  saw  some  fresh  aspect 
of  Lake  Leman,  I  would  exclaim :  "  I  could  not  de- 
scribe all  your  beauty ! "  One  evening,  in  the  hall  of 
the  hotel,  whilst  a  very  good  orchestra  was  playing,  a 
certain  chapter  of  my  book  took  shape  again  in  my 
mind;  I  noticed  that  the  waves  of  my  phrases  mingled 
with  the  waves  of  the  music,  and  that  they  seemed  to 
carry  each  other  along.  It  was  a  fresh  sensation  and 
a  delightful  one.  I  only  hope  that  I  may  experience 
it  again  with  this  volume.  This  volume!  I  wonder 
whether  I  shall  be  allowed  to  finish  it?  At  times  I 
doubt  and  think  that  it  will  finish  me.  With  the  fine 
unconsciousness  of  an  ignorant  creature,  I  had  under- 
taken the  reading  of  the  Wonderful  Romance.  I  little 
guessed  the  difficulties  with  which  I  should  meet.  This 
kind  of  book  requires  quite  another  method  of  work. 


148    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

It  is  no  longer  the  dream  which  constrains  me,  but 
reality,  and  this  is  formidable  and  implacable  beyond 
everything  I  could  have  imagined.  It  obliges  me  to 
think  over  my  subjects  a  long  time  before  I  touch  on 
them ;  it  will  not  put  up  with  pretty  nothings,  untruths 
that  are  so  easy  to  write.  It  plunges  me  from  one 
mystery  to  another  mystery,  and  I  discover,  in  the 
most  trivial  things,  a  depth  which  is  alarming  for  a 
simple  novel  writer.  I  feel  tempted  over  and  over  again 
to  give  up  this  reading  of  Life,  but  I  know  that  it  would 
be  impossible  for  me  to  return  to  my  stories.  What- 
ever may  come  of  it,  the  cellules  which  caused  my  early 
life  to  be  sombre  are  brightening  my  old  age.  I  tell 
this,  because  in  this  little  fact  there  is  hope  for  every 
one. 


WAS  the  egg  created  first  or  the  hen?  Was  it  the 
novel  that  produced  romance  or  romance  which  gave 
birth  to  the  novel?  These  are  two  questions  quite  as 
important  as  the  "  To  be  or  not  to  be  "  of  Hamlet,  and 
no  one  has  yet  been  able  to  answer  them  in  an  irrefut- 
able way.  I  shall  not  succeed  any  better  than  other 
people,  but,  as  I  have  just  said,  I  leave  one  mystery 
and  fall  into  another  one  all  the  time,  and  it  is  now 
this  one  with  which  my  thoughts  are  occupied. 

It  seems  to  me  that  it  must  be  the  egg  which  gave 
birth  to  the  fowl,  as  Nature  is  both  a  layer  and  a 
brooder.  It  hatches  germs  and  is,  above  all  things,  a 
transformer,  delighting  in  making  infinitely  great  things 
out  of  infinitely  small  ones..  We  ourselves  are  a  living 
proof  of  this.  In  the  same  way  I  think  it  is  romance 
that  engendered  the  novel,  because  this  is  the  exaltation 
of  Life,  an  exaltation  produced  by  that  creative  fac- 
ulty which  we  call  imagination. 

Reality  never  seems  strong  enough  to  us  and  so  we 
add  what  is  fictitious  to  it,  quite  unconsciously.  It 
would  be  interesting  to  see  what  a  piece  of  news,  told 
in  a  little  village,  would  become  by  the  time  it  had  gone 
the  whole  round  of  the  village.  It  would  be  most  in- 
teresting to  trace  what  each  person  had  added  to  it. 
The  narration  of  a  crime,  of  a  catastrophe,  or  of  a 
cataclysm  causes  us,  in  spite  of  ourselves,  a  secret  delec- 
tation. This  is  not  because  we  enjoy  it,  but  quite  the 

149 


150    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

contrary,  as  it  excites  our  horror,  or  our  pity,  but  it 
brings  the  tears  to  our  eyes.  When  an  emotion  of  any 
kind  accelerates  the  course  of  our  blood,  increases  the 
activity  of  our  cellules,  it  is  then  and  then  only  that  we 
feel  Life,  and  we  love  to  feel  it,  that  Divine  Force,  even 
if  it  is  to  crush  us. 

The  romantic  element  is  in  Nature;  it  is  one  of  the 
most  active  agents  of  good  and  evil.  It  takes  on  not 
only  character,  but  race.  Oriental  romance  docs  not 
resemble  Western  romance  nor  Anglo-Saxon  romance 
that  of  the  Latin  race.  Only  twenty  years  buck 
romanticism  was  very  feeble  in  America,  but  at  pres- 
ent it  has  made  its  way  there.  Sensational  abductions, 
misalliances,  divorces  and  dramas  of  all  kinds  are  on 
the  increase  there,  to  such  a  degree  that  our  Old  World 
seems  quite  virtuous  in  comparison. 

Like  poets,  romantic  people  have  their  waking  dreams 
and,  instead  of  writing  them  down,  they  endeavour  to 
live  them.  It  is  more  agreeable  for  them,  but  infinitely 
more  dangerous  —  and  more  particularly  for  others. 
There  are  intellectually  romantic  individuals,  senti- 
mentally romantic  and  mystically  romantic.  The  intel- 
lectually romantic  ones  have  dreams  of  social  or  artistic 
grandeur.  Such  dreams  make  conquerors,  ambitious 
men  or  women,  artists  and  criminals  of  them.  Such 
dreams  made  Ca>sar,  Nero,  Napoleon,  Michael  Angelo, 
Shakespeare.  The  sentimentally  romantic  individuals 
have  dreams  of  affection,  of  noble  devotion,  of  faithful 
friendship,  of  transcendental  love  and  of  humanitarian- 
ism.  These  dreams  make  passionate  lovers,  philanthro- 
pists and  an  infinite  number  of  sacrificed  and  crucified 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  151 

men  and  women.  The  romantic  mystics  have  dreams  of 
the  Beyond,  of  heavenly  blessedness.  Such  dreams  have 
made  martyrs,  men  and  women  like  St.  Francis,  St.  Vin- 
cent de  Paul  and  St.  Theresa. 

In  private  life,  there  are  more  romantic  individuals 
among  men  than  among  women.  That  is  easily  ex- 
plained. Man  has  more  imagination  than  woman,  his 
imagination  is  active,  a  creator  of  pictures,  whilst  that 
of  the  woman  is  passive  and  only  a  reflector.  Both 
physiologically  and  psychologically,  man  needs  illu- 
sions. It  is  this  which  makes  faithfulness  difficult  to 
him  and,  in  many  cases,  impossible.  Within  the  senti- 
mentally romantic  individual  there  is  a  depth  of  deli- 
cacy and  of  modesty  which  he  conceals  with  care,  but 
which,  constantly  hurt,  causes  him  much  suffering. 
Any  lack  of  harmony  irritates  him,  he  is  enchanted  by 
a  mere  nothing,  and  just  as  easily  disenchanted.  A 
man  of  this  kind  confessed  to  me  that  the  admiration 
he  had  felt  for  a  certain  pretty  woman  vanished  when 
he  discovered  her  taste  for  high  game.  A  young  friend 
of  mine  told  me  that,  during  the  first  months  of  her 
married  life,  she  used  to  go  backwards  and  forwards 
from  her  husband's  room  to  her  own  with  bare  shoul- 
ders. One  day,  tapping  them  affectionately,  her  hus- 
band said  to  her :  "  If  you  want  me  to  like  seeing  those 
pretty  shoulders  always,  do  not  show  me  them  too 
much."  The  young  wife  was  intelligent  and  I  have 
reason  to  believe  that  she  profited  by  the  lesson. 

Sentimental,  romantic  people  are  subjective  creatures, 
and  they  rarely  see  things  as  they  are.  Blinded  by  the 
ideal  that  they  have  unconsciously  elaborated,  they  dis- 


152          THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

dain  reality,  which  avenges  itself  cruelly  sometimes. 
They  are  the  worst  statesmen  possible.  They  bring 
their  literature,  unconsciously,  into  their  politics,  and 
this  is  more  dangerous  than  to  bring  it  into  their  love 
affairs.  Into  parliamentary  debates,  they  bring  a  sort 
of  nervous  uncvenness,  a  ridiculous  sentimentality,  a 
persistent  illogicalness  which  produces  nothing  but  in- 
coherence. In  France,  we  have  too  many  such  ro-» 
mnntic  individuals  in  power. 

Romantic  wives  are  not  precisely  the  joy  and  tran- 
quillity of  their  husbands.  They  are  the  women  of 
eternal  desire.  They  always  want  from  love  and  friend- 
ship more  than  these  can  give,  and  they  give  to  love  and 
friendship  more  than  these  want.  This  makes  them 
irritating  and  uncomfortable.  Duality  is,  with  them, 
quite  distinct,  just  as  it  is  with  poets  and  novelists. 
This  duality  allows  them  to  watch  themselves  live. 
They  see  themselves  walking,  doing  things,  they  hear 
themselves  talking,  they  endeavour  to  be  poetical,  they 
pose,  not  only  for  others,  but  for  themselves  too.  They 
keep  feeding  their  own  sorrows  with  a  kind  of  voluptu- 
ousness and,  when  Time  has  carried  these  away,  they  do 
their  utmost  to  make  people  think  that  they  still  exist. 
There  is  never  crape  enough  for  their  mourning! 
Those  who  have  only  imagination  love  with  open  eyes: 
they  have  wine,  but  they  never  experience  the  intoxi- 
cation of  wine,  they  are  great  illusionists.  They  judge 
their  husbands  or  their  lovers  calmly  and  they  usually 
think  them  faulty.  Such  women  are  dangerous.  Still 
more  dangerous  is  the  romantic  woman  who  has  a  great 
deal  of  temperament  and  plenty  of  nerves,  but  who  is 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  153 

not  balanced  by  some  great  moral  force,  such  as  the 
sentiment  of  honour  or  of  religion.  Her  brain,  like 
that  of  the  novelist,  is  the  theatre  of  a  strange  phan- 
tasmagoria. It  manufactures,  not  films  of  art,  but 
films  of  love.  Figures  appear  and  disappear  upon  its 
screen.  It  frequently  happens  that,  under  the  con- 
scious or  unconscious  action  of  her  thought,  one  of 
these  figures  becomes  very  clearly  defined,  takes  form 
literally  and,  from  that  moment,  her  husband  has  a 
rival.  The  rival  is  sure  to  be  fair  if  the  husband  be 
dark;  gentle  if  the  husband  be  rough,  bold  and  refined 
if  the  other  be  timid  and  vulgar.  The  rival  has  none 
of  the  ridiculous  attitudes  of  the  human  being,  he 
walks,  as  it  were,  on  the  clouds.  This  figure,  which  she 
unconsciously  creates  and  completes  herself,  becomes 
her  ideal.  She  has  no  longer  a  soul  except  for  this 
puppet,  and  her  eyes  are  seeking  for  it  everywhere. 
She  establishes  this  figure  in  some  mysterious  abode 
which  she  furnishes,  decorates  and  perfumes  in  a  more 
or  less  aesthetic  way.  And  she  always  sees  him  there, 
holding  out  his  arms  to  her  in  desperation,  always  in 
wild  desperation.  She  sees  herself  going  to  him  in 
spite  of  all  obstacles;  she  sees  herself  getting  out  of  a 
carriage  at  the  corner  of  some  street,  putting  on  an 
indifferent  air  and  then,  half  suffocated  by  the  beat- 
ing of  her  heart,  passing  through  the  big  gateway  of 
the  house  and  arriving  at  the  threshold  of  the  Para- 
dise, the  keys  of  which  are  kept  by  Love  and  not  by 
St.  Peter.  She  seems  like  a  heroine  of  romance  to 
herself.  Thanks  to  her  imagination,  she  manages  to 
feel  all  these  emotions.  She  feasts  on  them  and,  if  she 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

should,  some  day,  meet  with  a  being  who  bears  the 
slightest  resemblance,  if  only  thanks  to  the  nose  or 
moustache,  to  the  ideal  she  has  imagined,  she  will  re- 
spond to  his  call  and  will  live  out  her  dream  —  or  will 
perhaps  die  of  it.  If  I  am  not  mistaken,  this  is  how 
Nature  makes  faithless  creatures. 

A  few  weeks  ago,  probably  for  the  chapter  that  I 
was  about  to  write,  a  young  woman  was  sent  to  me. 
She  came  to  see  me  under  the  pretext  of  thanking  me 
for  the  good  that  certain  of  my  books  had  done  her, 
but,  in  reality,  for  the  simple  pleasure  of  telling  me 
the  adventure  of  which  she  was  the  heroine,  and  also 
from  a  wish  to  appear  interesting  to  a  novelist.  She 
is  a  Parisian  society  woman,  as  thin  and  elegant  as  a 
greyhound.  Her  features  were  drawn,  her  fair  hair  was 
of  a  warm  shade  and  her  blue  eyes  shone  with  feverish- 
ness.  Her  story  was  somewhat  commonplace.  At 
Salso  Maggiore,  an  Italian  watering-place  that  has  come 
into  favour  quite  recently,  she  had  met  a  certain  Aus- 
trian baron.  She  had  been  madly  fascinated  by  his 
grand  manners  and  by  his  fine,  romantic  sentiments. 
For  the  sake  of  this  stranger,  she  had  left  her  home 
and  her  family,  and  had  entirely  broken  with  her  past. 
The  romance  had  lasted  three  years.  By  way  of  epi- 
logue, there  had  been  the  rupture  and  desertion,  the 
inevitable  desertion.  For  the  baron,  it  all  meant  a 
pleasant  remembrance  of  a  love  adventure  with  a  pretty 
Parisian  woman ;  for  the  pretty  Parisian  woman,  it 
had  meant  divorce,  dishonour,  uprooting  and,  finally, 
being  stranded  in  a  hotel ;  it  had  meant  two  deep,  in- 
effaceable wrinkles  around  a  mouth  that  was  still  young. 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  155 

While  the  poor  woman  was  telling  me  all  this,  I  studied 
her  closely.  I  quickly  recognised  the  romantic  element 
in  her,  and  my  curiosity  made  me  want  to  know  in  what 
way  it  had  worked  on  her. 

"  Were  you  not  happy  with  your  husband  ?  "  I  asked. 

She  shrugged  her  shoulders. 

"  Yes,  and  no.  He  was  a  good  sort,  but  one  of  those 
men  who  say  to  you :  '  I  love  you,  I  am  faithful  to 
you,  what  more  can  you  want? '  You  can  imagine 
how  impossible  it  would  be  to  make  him  understand 
*  the  more  '  that  I  needed." 

"You  never  had  any  children,  I  suppose?" 

"  No  —  fortunately.  I  like  to  persuade  myself  that 
if  I  had  had  any,  I  should  have  been  stronger  against 
temptation.  But  I  am  flattering  myself,  perhaps. 
Everything  was  so  oppressive :  my  husband,  my  mother- 
in-law,  our  house.  As  to  the  house,  I  had  altered  the 
looks  of  it  entirely." 

Those  words  were  a  revelation  to  me. 

"  I  suppose  you  used  to  frequent  the  antiquarians  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  went  curiosity  hunting,  simply  because  it 
was  the  thing  to.  do,  at  first,  but  very  soon  my  taste 
was  formed  and  it  began  to  develop.  I  became  pas- 
sionately fond  of  Italian  furniture." 

"  Ah,  I  see,"  I  exclaimed,  delighted  with  my  own 
intuition.  "  You  handled  old  stuffs  and  beautiful  em- 
broideries, stroked  exquisitely  carved  wood,  admired 
gilded  side-tables  with  graceful  lines  and  hunted  up  old 
portraits,  and  all  these  things  acted  on  you  in  an 
occult  way;  you  were  hypnotised  and  fascinated  by 
them.  They  made  you  feel  disgusted  with  your  mod- 


156    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

ern  and,  perhaps,  bourgeois  home,  and  I  feel  sure  that 
they  made  you  dream  some  extravagant  dream." 

My  visitor  gazed  at  me,  her  eyes  dilated  with  sur- 
prise. 

"  Yes,  that  is  quite  possible,"  she  said  at  last  slowly. 
"  I  did  dream  of  living  in  some  old  Italian  palace.  And 
after  all,  I  have  lived  my  dream,  for  I  spent  my  love 
moon  in  Venice,  in  an  ideal  setting.  The  ceiling  of  my 
bedroom  was  painted  by  Tiepolo  and  it  was  so  beautiful 
that  I  feasted  on  it  with  my  eyes." 

"  Well,  you  see  where  your  old  curiosities  took  you ; 
they  led  you  straight  along  by  the  hand." 

My  visitor  gave  a  little  discordant  laugh. 

"  I  did  not  know  they  could  be  so  dangerous,"  she 
said.  "  I  shall  like  them  better  than  ever  now,"  she 
added,  in  pure  bravado. 

It  is  not  enough  to  recognise  that  "  everything  con- 
curs." We  must  try  to  find  out  how,  and  that  is  al- 
ways wonderful.  I  once  happened  to  ask  a  delightful 
young  man,  of  about  thirty  years  of  age,  why  he  had 
not  married. 

"  Because  I  am  afraid,"  he  replied.  "  You  see,  I 
should  be  honest  enough  to  put  all  my  hopes  of  happi- 
ness into  my  marriage  and  I  dare  not  draw,  lest  a  bad 
card  should  fall  to  my  lot.  I  had  a  very  narrow  es- 
cape once.  Some  friends,  with  whom  I  was  staying 
in  the  country,  introduced  me  to  a  family  in  their  neigh- 
bourhood. There  was  the  most  absolutely  charming 
daughter  of  about  eighteen.  After  riding  together 
and  playing  tennis,  I  was  soon  in  love  with  her.  I 
felt  sure  that  I  should  be  accepted  and  I  began,  in  a 


157 

very  discreet  way,  to  let  her  see  how  matters  were. 
One  Sunday  as  we  were  walking  back  to  the  house  to- 
gether, from  the  park,  I  ventured,  not  without  great 
emotion,  to  tell  her  something  of  the  feeling  I  had  for 
her.  I  can  see  her  now.  She  was  wearing  a  skirt  of 
white  woollen  material  and  a  white  transparent  blouse, 
through  which  I  could  see  pretty  little  ribbons.  Her 
hair  was  tied  low  in  her  neck  with  a  large  bow,  mak- 
ing her  look  rather  like  a  school-girl.  She  seemed  to 
like  listening  to  me  and  I  noticed  that  her  little  ear 
and  her  cheek  turned  pink.  Just  when  I  thought  I  had 
touched  her,  she  stopped  short  and,  looking  at  me  with 
astonishment  on  her  face,  she  remarked :  *  Is  that  a 
declaration?  ' 

"  No,"  I  exclaimed,  "  not  really !  "  laughing,  in  spite 
of  myself,  as  I  thought  of  the  effect  the  girl's  words 
must  have  produced  on  the  young  man. 

"  Yes,  really  !  " 

"  And  what  did  you  answer?  " 

"  That  that  was  all  a  gentleman  had  the  right  to  say 
to  a  young  girl.  She  just  replied  '  Oh! '  in  a  strained 
tone,  and  we  continued  our  walk.  I  was  too  completely 
taken  aback  to  say  any  more  on  the  subject.  I  under- 
stood that  she  was  a  romantic  girl  and,  as  I  do  not 
feel  that  I  am  of  the  stuff  of  which  heroes  are  made, 
I  gradually  drew  back.  Do  you  not  think  I  acted 
wisely?  " 

I  looked  at  him.  He  was  handsome,  but  built  for 
an  active,  prosaic  life  and  with  him  the  young  wife 
would  probably  have  kept  saying,  all  the  time :  "  Is 
that  all!" 


158    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

"  Yes,  you  acted  wisely,"  I  answered  with  convic- 
tion. 

"  And  you  can  understand  that  after  a  wet  blanket 
like  that,  reaction  is  not  an  easy  thing  and  marriage 
alarms  me." 

"  Yes,  I  understand  perfectly  well." 

It  is  quite  certain  that,  among  romantic  women,  there 
are  a  great  many  Emma  Bovarys.  If  imaginative 
young  bourgeois  women  could  write  and  so  get  rid  of 
the  steam  they  get  up,  we  should  have  a  few  more  novels 
and  a  few  less  faithless  wives.  Art  would  lose  by  this, 
but  morals  would  surely  gain  by  it. 

The  nervous  romantic  woman  is  usually  a  loving  wife, 
a  passionately  fond  mother,  or  rather  a  brooder.  She 
would  give  her  life  for  her  family  and  yet  she  makes 
her  family  thoroughly  unhappy.  She  has  a  bad  way 
of  loving.  If  her  husband  does  not  always  answer  her 
as  the  shepherd  did  the  shepherdess,  she  thinks  that  she 
is  neglected  and  betrayed.  If  he  is  kept  out  late,  she 
gets  anxious  in  the  most  ridiculous  way.  For  her  chil- 
dren, she  does  not  accept  the  struggle  of  life,  because 
they  are  her  children.  She  suffers  more  than  they  do 
and  she  will  not  face  the  eventuality  of  long  separa- 
tions. She  cuts  her  little  ones'  wings  in  the  most  stupid 
way,  in  order  to  keep  them  a  longer  time  with  her. 
A  character  of  this  kind  creates  a  disturbed  atmosphere 
in  which  no  one  could  be  happy.  I  used  to  attribute 
all  this  to  an  excess  of  feeling,  but  I  now  see  that  women 
of  this  kind  are  simply  agitated  creatures,  all  out  of 
tune,  who  do  not  love  with  their  intelligence  and  their 
heart,  but  with  their  nerves,  nerves  over  which  they 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  159 

have  no  control.  They  are  very  much  to  be  pitied  and 
those  who  live  with  them  are  still  more  to  be  pitied. 
Only  a  doctor,  who  is  a  real  neuro-physiologist,  could 
put  them  in  tune  again. 

The  romantic  element  in  a  superior,  well-balanced 
woman  is  a  force.  She  makes  use  of  it  in  order  to 
extract  from  reality,  no  matter  how  poor  that  may  be, 
all  the  beauty  and  poetry  that  it  contains.  She  can 
create  the  most  harmonious  setting  for  herself  out  of 
nothing.  She  is  charming  in  love,  in  friendship  and 
in  social  intercourse.  When  she  loves  her  husband,  she 
will  frequently  attribute  to  him  gifts  that  he  does  not 
possess ;  she  makes  a  pedestal  for  him  and,  if  repeated 
shocks  should  crack  it,  she  will  cement  it  heroically,  so 
that  it  lasts  as  long  as  she  does  herself.  I  have  known 
women  who,  thanks  to  their  faith  and  their  constant 
suggestion,  have  made  of  their  husbands  men  of  worth, 
if  they  could  not  make  men  of  genius  of  them. 

Within  the  last  twenty  years,  the  gods  have  been 
creating,  in  America,  a  curious  variation  of  the  ro- 
mantic woman,  the  intellectually  romantic  woman.  She 
has  been  admirably  studied  and  photographed  in  a  novel 
entitled  Together,  by  Herrick.  She  is  the  woman  who 
sins,  not  like  Mary  Magdalene,  and  not  like  the  French- 
woman, the  Italian  woman  or  even  the  Englishwoman, 
from  a  need  of  the  poetry  of  love,  but  in  order  to  sat- 
isfy the  aspirations  of  the  superior  soul  she  has  dis- 
covered within  herself  which  guides  her  towards  an- 
other soul  equally  superior.  I  am  quite  sure  that  what 
we  read  in  this  book  was  lived  in  this  spirit.  All  this 
is  the  result  of  the  higher  studies  to  which  feminine 


160    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

brains,  that  are  insufficiently  prepared  for  such  studies, 
have  been  submitted.  The  brains  will  be  prepared  for 
the  studies,  but,  in  the  meantime,  may  God  preserve 
every  husband  from  the  intellectually  romantic  wife? 
It  makes  me  smile  to  think  that  if  any  one  but  an 
American  had  written  Together,  his  effigy  would  have 
been  burnt  in  America. 

The  romantic  element  is  very  strong  in  the  people 
themselves  of  every  nation.  It  is  frequently  the  cause 
of  the  most  sublime  actions  and  still  more  frequently 
of  criminal  deeds.  I  had  the  good  fortune  to  meet  with 
it  once  in  its  natural  state,  free  from  all  pose,  in  a  very 
humble  woman,  and  never  has  it  appeared  to  me  so 
miraculous. 

In  the  corridor  of  a  hotel,  at  which  I  was  staying 
for  the  first  time,  I  often  met  one  of  the  persons  em- 
ployed there,  the  sempstress.  She  was  a  woman  of 
about  fifty,  a  typical  Frenchwoman  of  Southern 
France,  holding  her  head  up  like  a  true  Arlesian  and 
walking  with  the  light  step  of  a  nun.  The  expression 
of  her  very  beautiful,  dark  eyes,  which  were  much 
younger  than  her  age,  aroused  my  curiosity.  I  recog- 
nise very  quickly,  now,  eyes  that  have  a  history,  and 
those  certainly  had  one.  The  woman  had  an  extremely 
timid  look  when  her  eyes  met  mine,  but  a  ray  seemed 
to  come  from  them  and  I  had  the  impression  that  it 
gave  me  something,  a  something  which  pleased  me.  It 
was  probably  on  that  account  that  I  spoke  to  her. 
However  that  may  be,  I  asked  her  whether  she  could 
find  me  a  work-girl  who  would  come  to  me,  once  or  twice 
a  week,  to  put  a  few  necessary  stitches  into  my  clothes 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  161 

and  to  keep  my  wardrobe  and  drawers  tidy.  Blushing 
deeply  and  in  a  nervous  voice,  she  told  me  that  she 
would  gladly  do  all  this  herself,  and  the  matter  was 
at  once  settled.  From  the  very  first,  I  recognised  in 
her  a  refined  nature.  She  came  in  the  evenings,  after 
her  day's  work,  and  on  Sunday  afternoons  when  the 
weather  was  bad.  When  I  happened  to  be  there,  she 
moved  about  very  quietly  and  I  could  feel  a  sort  of 
affectionate  respectfulness  in  her  attentions.  If  I 
were  lying  down  on  my  sofa,  she  would  arrange  the 
cushions  under  my  head,  pull  up  the  rug  when  it  was 
slipping  off  and  generally  look  after  my  comfort  in  a 
way  which  made  me  think  how  pleasant  it  would  be  to 
be  always  waited  on  like  this.  Very  often  even,  she 
would  put  flowers  on  my  dressing-table.  Urged  on  by 
the  real  interest  I  felt  in  her,  I  tried  to  find  out  some- 
thing about  her  life.  She  told  me  that  she  was  from 
Provence,  that  her  brother  and  two  sisters  were  em- 
ployed in  hotels  and  that,  for  the  last  five  years,  all 
the  linen  of  this  hotel  had  been  in  her  charge.  Her 
natural  reserve,  the  pride  and  sensitiveness  which  I 
knew  she  had,  held  my  curiosity  in  check.  I  could  feel, 
nevertheless,  that  she  had  some  confidence  or  some  con- 
fession to  make  to  me.  I  even  felt  sure  that  she  had 
only  offered  her  services  to  me  on  that  account.  Sev- 
eral times,  I  surprised  a  mute  appeal,  or  a  distressed 
look,  in  her  eyes.  I  saw  her  lips  move  as  though  she 
were  going  to  ask  a  question,  and  then  she  was  silent. 
It  was  very  evident  that  I  had  not  found  the  right 
words  for  unlocking  her  soul. 

One  Sunday  afternoon,  as  I  was  sitting  at  my  writ- 


162    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

ing-table,  looking  through  some  notes,  she  was  dili- 
gently arranging  one  of  my  blouses.  Without  being 
aware  of  it,  she  attracted  my  attention.  I  could  see 
her  three-quarter  profile  and  she  made  the  most  har- 
monious figure  in  her  simplicity.  It  was  a  pleasure  to 
look  at  her.  Her  dark  hair  was  still  thick.  She  wore 
it  twisted  low  in  her  neck  and  this  showed  up  the  oval 
of  her  face.  She  was  wearing  a  well-cut,  grey  dress 
of  woollen  material  and  her  linen  collar  and  cuffs  and 
white  apron  were  perfectly  clean.  Thanks  to  her  long 
eyelashes,  her  eyes,  even  when  she  was  looking  down, 
were  beautiful  and  warm  looking.  The  years  that  had 
passed  over  her,  and  the  daily  struggle,  had  traced  deep 
lines  around  her  nose  and  mouth,  but,  curiously  enough, 
they  had  respected  her  forehead.  This  was  as  smooth 
as  though  she  were  only  twenty  years  of  age.  I  have 
noticed  this  peculiarity  among  men  who  are  thinkers. 
And  strangely  enough,  too,  she  did  not  look  like  an  old 
maid,  but  like  a  married  woman. 

"Suzanne,  how  is  it  that  you  are  not  married?"  I 
suddenly  asked,  prompted  probably  by  the  impression 
I  had  just  had. 

I  had  thrown  my  bait,  in  the  hope  of  obtaining  one 
of  those  simple  stories  which  are  my  delight,  and  I 
obtained  something  far,  far  better.  My  sudden  ques- 
tion stopped  the  workwoman's  needle  short. 

"  I  have  often  been  asked  that,"  she  answered.  "  I 
do  not  know  why." 

"  Because  you  must  certainly  have  been  very  at- 
tractive." 

'*  You  are  very  kind  to  say  so.     Yes,  I  could  have 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  163 

married  like  other  girls,  but  you  see,  my  mother  was 
a  widow  with  four  children.  I  was  the  eldest  and  had 
to  help  her,  for  she  could  never  have  done  everything 
herself,  although  she  was  a  hard  worker.  She  went  out 
as  charwoman  and,  every  morning  at  daybreak,  winter 
and  summer,  she  sold  hot  coffee  to  working  men.  She 
had  her  little  stall  in  the  recess  of  a  big  gateway  to  a 
house.  She  had  been  allowed  to  install  her  little  stove 
there.  When  she  was  at  the  oven,  I  had  to  mind  the 
mill.  I  was  not  even  able  to  serve  apprenticeship  to  a 
sempstress,  as  I  wanted  to." 

"  You  went  to  school,  though,  I  suppose?  " 
"  No,  but  I  had  lessons  such  as  are  not  given  in 
schools.  One  of  the  flats,  on  the  first  floor  of  the  house 
in  which  we  lived,  was  inhabited  by  an  old  lady  who 
lived  quite  alone.  My  mother  kept  her  flat  in  order 
and  I  did  her  errands.  Every  one  called  her  Madame 
Louis,  but  she  must  have  had  another  name  that  we 
never  knew.  She  was  a  very  little  woman,  and  yet,  I 
do  not  know  why,  she  never  looked  small.  She  had 
very  white  hair  and  clearly-cut  features  and  she  looked 
like  an  old  portrait  that  was  alive.  Everything  was 
very  beautiful  in  her  little  flat.  I  have  seen  rooms  in 
the  houses  of  rich  people,  but  not  one  that  seemed  to 
me  furnished  as  well  as  hers.  Her  furniture  was  very 
old,  though.  She  had  a  great  many  books,  and  pictures 
like  those  in  picture  galleries.  They  represented  gen- 
tlemen in  uniform  and  ladies  in  low-necked  dresses  and 
she  put  flowers  in  front  of  these  portraits.  I  fancied 
she  had  come  to  our  poor  district,  not  only  because  she 
had  a  small  income,  but  because  she  wanted  to  do  good, 


164    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

and  that  she  certainly  did,  to  such  a  degree  that  people 
called  her  *  Our  Lady  of  Help.'  It  was  she  who  taught 
me  to  read,  write  and  reckon  and  all  that  I  know  of 
geography  and  history.  I  studied  with  her  an  hour 
in  the  morning  and  an  hour  in  the  afternoon.  She 
gave  me  lessons  to  learn  by  heart,  and  I  learnt  them 
whilst  working  with  my  fingers.  She  often  used  to  in- 
vite me  to  take  my  basket  of  mending  and  sit  with  her 
in  the  evenings.  Those  evenings  were  fete-days  for  me. 
She  used  to  read  poetry  and  fables  to  me  and  tell  me 
about  the  lives  of  great  men.  Dear  Madame  Louis ! 
I  owe  her  as  much  as  I  owe  to  my  mother  who  brought 
me  into  the  world.  She  died  of  pneumonia  after  three 
days'  illness.  I  was  sixteen  years  old  and  I  nursed 
her  and  closed  her  eyes.  That  has  always  been  my  con- 
solation. Every  one  in  the  neighbourhood  went  to  her 
funeral.  Some  gentleman  we  had  never  seen  came  and 
took  away  her  pretty  furniture,  which  was  all  as  soft 
to  touch  as  satin.  She  left  me  three  hundred  francs, 
which  she  had  probably  economised  out  of  her  income. 
She  left  me,  too,  all  of  her  books  that  I  could  under- 
stand. For  a  long  time  after  her  death,  I  had  such  a 
pang  at  my  heart  every  time  I  passed  her  door  that 
I  had  no  breath  left  for  climbing  up  to  our  fifth  floor. 
My  mother  used  to  be  quite  jealous.  *  You  could  not 
feel  more  grief  if  I  had  died,'  she  said,  and  this  was 
quite  true." 

"  Do  you  not  think  that  it  was  the  society  of  Madame 
Louis  that  spoilt  you  and  prevented  your  marrying  a 
man  of  your  own  station?  "  I  asked,  smiling. 

"  Perhaps  so  —  and  then,  too,  we  are  proud  in  our 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  165 

family  and  my  mother  would  never  have  endured  being 
kept  by  her  son-in-law,  so  I  had  to  stay  with  her.  No, 
I  could  not  marry,  but  I  have  been  very  happy,  all  the 
same,"  added  the  woman,  in  a  voice  that  suddenly  be- 
came lower,  thanks  to  her  emotion.  "  I  imagined  that 
I  was  married." 

"  Really  1 "  I  said,  with  the  sensation  of  the  fisher- 
man when  he  feels  the  line  vibrating  in  his  hand. 

Suzanne  glanced  at  my  face  anxiously. 

"  You  will  make  fun  of  me,"  she  said. 

"  No,  indeed,"  I  replied  quickly.  *'  I  love  day- 
dreams. Tell  me  about  yours,  just  as  though  I  were 
your  confessor." 

This  put  the  poor  woman  at  her  ease  and,  with  her 
beautiful  eyes  fixed  on  me  and  her  hands  still,  she  con- 
tinued, with  a  faint  blush  on  her  face : 

"  I  fancied  I  was  the  wife  of  a  fine  fellow,  tall,  strong, 
with  fair  hair,  blue  eyes,  a  beautiful  colour  in  his  cheeks 
and  a  drooping  moustache.  I  named  him  Louis." 

"  In  remembrance  of  your  friend,  no  doubt?  " 

Suzanne  nodded  and  continued,  in  a  lower  voice: 

"  I  used  to  picture  myself  with  him  in  a  little  home 
of  two  very  light,  airy  rooms  looking  on  to  an  old 
garden.  There  were  red  geraniums  in  our  window  and 
birds  singing  madly.  The  furniture,  the  kitchen  things 
and  the  floor  all  shone  —  oh,  how  I  made  them  shine ! 
Louis  was  a  mechanician  and  in  the  evening,  when  he 
came  home,  he  did  not  bring  with  him  the  odour  of 
the  public-house,  like  other  men,  but  the  odour  of  his 
work-shop,  a  good  odour  of  iron  and  of  fresh  air. 
After  dinner,  he  would  read  the  newspaper  to  me  while  I 


166    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

was  sewing,  and  he  had  a  voice  like  music.  In  the 
spring,  he  brought  me  violets  and  he  said  such  beautiful 
things  to  me.  Oh,  he  was  very  much  in  love  with 
me—" 

"  Did  you  never  see  any  other  faces  than  that  of 
Louis?  "  I  asked,  prompted  by  my  pitiless  curiosity. 

**  Oh,  never ;  that  would  have  been  impossible,"  an- 
swered my  penitent,  with  an  accent  that  made  me 
ashamed  of  my  question.  I  was  careful  not  to  tell  her 
that  there  are  people  who  are  faithless  even  in  their 
dreams. 

"  And  did  you  not  imagine,  too,  that  you  had  chil- 
dren?" 

The  emotion  and  the  blush  caused  by  my  question 
revealed  to  me  how  profound  the  dream  had  been. 

"  Yes  —  a  little  girl,  fair  like  her  father  and  with 
his  blue  eyes.  We  used  to  take  her  out  on  Sundays, 
and  in  summer  we  filled  her  carriage  with  flowers,  so 
that  even  her  head  could  not  be  seen.  It  was  so  pretty, 
all  that." 

"  Suzanne,  you  are  a  poet,"  I  exclaimed,  charmed 
with  this  little  picture. 

"  You  are  laughing  at  me  — " 

"  Not  at  all." 

"  My  life  would  have  been  very  dull,  if  it  had  not 
been  for  these  fancies." 

"  And  when  did  they  come  to  you?  " 

"  As  soon  as  I  was  alone,  but  particularly  in  church." 

"  In  church ! "  I  repeated,  struck  by  this  revelation. 

"  Yes,  I  used  to  go  in  often  on  that  account,  towards 
the  end  of  the  day,  at  twilight.  It  was  wrong,  perhaps, 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  167 

but  there  was  such  a  noise  at  home.  If  I  looked  as 
though  I  were  thinking  of  anything,  they  all  used  to 
say:  '  Suzanne  is  up  in  the  moon.'  I  was  really  in 
Paradise,"  added  the  dreamer,  in  a  broken  voice. 

"  And  what  about  your  Louis  ?  Did  he  get  older 
with  you,  or  has  he  remained  young?  " 

"  Oh,  all  that  is  over.  It  is  as  though  I  had  had  a 
dream  and  that  I  am  now  awake  again.  I  remember 
it,  but  I  cannot  go  back  into  it." 

"  How  old  are  you?  " 

"  Fifty-five." 

"  Your  dream  was  one  of  the  flowers  of  youth  and 
the  season  has  gone  by  for  you.  It  is  merely  that," 
I  said. 

"  I  should  never  have  thought  of  speaking  of  all  this 
to  any  one  on  earth.  People  would  have  said  I  was 
crazy  and,  with  us,  people  have  not  much  faith  in  those 
who  are  not  like  every  one  else." 

She  glanced  at  me  with  that  expression  of  anguish 
which  had  struck  me  previously. 

"  I  should  like  to  know  quite  frankly  whether  you 
think  that  I  was  mad?  " 

"  Mad !  "  I  exclaimed.  "  Certainly  not.  What  put 
that  idea  in  your  head?  " 

"  Well,  my  sisters  and  my  friends  never  had  imagi- 
nations like  that." 

"  Because  they  are  not  gifted  to  the  same  degree 
as  you,  but  every  one  has  more  or  less  imagination. 
Do  not  children  imagine  things?  They  have  little  din- 
ners, and  leaves  from  the  trees  are  their  plates  and 
dishes,  pebbles  are  their  cakes  and  they  suck  them  with 


168    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

conviction  and  even  imagine  that  they  have  the  taste 
of  sugar." 

"  Yes,  that  is  true." 

"  One  day,  a  young  English  boy  of  fourteen  told  me 
about  the  boar  hunt  in  which  he  had  taken  part.  He 
had  given  his  first  proofs  of  valour,  for  it  was  he  who 
had  struck  the  fatal  blow  when  the  animal  was  run 
to  earth.  Whilst  he  was  telling  me  all  this,  he  held 
his  foot  in  his  hand  and  his  blue  eyes  had  a  fixed  look, 
as  though  he  had  a  vision  of  what  he  was  telling  me. 
I  knew  it  was  all  imaginary,  but  I  had  not  the  courage 
to  tell  him  that  I  knew  this.  At  present,  he  is  the  most 
honest  of  men.  You  see  he  was  not  mad  at  all.  And 
what  about  novelists  who  are  imagining  all  the  time. 
I  hope  they  are  not  mad?"  I  said,  smiling. 

"  No,  oh,  no,"  said  my  companion  with  polite  em- 
phasis ;  "  but  what  is  it  that  causes  all  that  ?  " 

"  What  causes  all  that  ?  Ah,  my  good  Suzanne,  we 
do  not  know  anything  about  that  yet.  At  the  back 
of  our  foreheads,  and  underneath  our  craniums,  we  must 
have  a  crowd  of  organs  with  which  we  think,  reason, 
love  and  imagine,  that  is  we  group  together  the  pic- 
tures, just  as  you  did  in  your  youthful  dream.  We 
can  quite  well  group  them  together,  but  we  cannot  give 
life  to  them.  Only  God  can  create  what  He  imagines. 
All  that  we  see,  the  sun,  the  stars,  the  plants,  the  flow- 
ers, the  animals  and  men  are  all  His  imaginations." 

'*  The  sun,  stars,  flowers,  birds  —  all  the  imagina- 
tions of  God?"  repeated  the  poor  woman.  Her  face 
suddenly  lighted  up  and  she  exclaimed :  "  Yes,  yes ; 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  169 

oh,  I  understand.  I  loved  Him  well  before,  but 
now!—" 

She  could  not  finish  her  sentence  and  I  saw  her  clasp 
her  hands  together,  instinctively,  in  adoration. 

"  It  is  very  curious,"  she  said,  "  at  church  one  never 
thinks  of  all  that.  We  pray  and  pray  and  we  do,  not 
know  exactly  to  whom  we  are  praying." 

"  That  does  not  matter ;  it  is  better  to  pray  wrongly 
than  not  to  pray  at  all." 

"  I  felt  sure  that,  as  you  write  books,  you  could 
explain  things  to  me.  Oh,  what  a  weight  you  have 
lifted  from  my  mind.  The  idea  that  I  had  been  mad 
haunted  me  and  made  me  feel  ashamed." 

"  Shall  I  tell  you  what  you  are,  Suzanne  ?  "  I  said, 
smiling.  "  You  are  a  woman  who  should  have  been  a 
novelist  and  I  am  sure  that  you  will  go  on  imagining 
always." 

The  colour  came  quickly  into  my  penitent's  face. 

"  Yes,  but  it  is  not  the  same  thing  now.  I  only  im- 
agine that  I  have  a  little  house  in  the  country." 

"  And  can  you  see  it  ?  " 

"Yes,  just  as  I  see  you,  Madame.  The  wistaria  is 
up  to  the  very  roof  and,  at  the  back,  there  are  old 
trees  and  a  deep  well  in  which  the  moon  can  be  seen. 
In  the  front  garden  there  are  quantities  of  flowers." 

"  Well,  that  dream  may  be  realised,"  I  said.  "  There 
is  more  likelihood  of  having  a  little  house  in  the  coun- 
try than  of  having  a  perfect  husband  like  your  Louis." 

"  Not  much  more  likelihood  for  me,"  said  the  woman, 
with  a  sad  smile,  continuing  her  work. 


170    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

That  day,  when  she  left,  she  kissed  my  hand.  It  was 
I,  really,  who  ought  to  have  thanked  her,  for  she  had 
given  me  the  rare  enjoyment  of  coming  face  to  face 
with  one  of  the  most  beautiful  miracles  of  Nature. 
How  very  beautiful  it  was,  her  dream  of  conjugal  love. 
Out  of  delicacy,  I  had  not  dared  question  my  penitent 
more  closely,  but  how  much  I  had  guessed  and  ad- 
mired !  This  brunette,  of  Latin  race,  had,  thanks  prob- 
ably to  some  latent  memory  due  to  atavism,  created 
for  herself  a  husband  with  fair  hair,  blue  eyes  and  a 
drooping  moustache,  a  true  Gaul.  Solitary,  although 
in  the  midst  of  her  family,  thanks  to  her  innate  refine- 
ment and  to  her  contact  with  Madame  Louis,  she  had 
only  been  able  to  love  the  creature  of  her  imagination 
and  she  had  loved  him  like  a  being  of  flesh  and  bone. 
She  had  felt  herself  clasped  in  his  strong  arms,  her 
lips  had  been  coloured  by  his  rough  kisses  and,  thanks 
to  auto-suggestion,  she  had  put  into  his  mouth,  the 
"  beautiful  words "  which  had  been  invented  by  her 
own  brain.  He  had  made  her  his  wife.  In  the  dark 
chapel  to  which  she  had  gone,  at  the  end  of  the  day, 
the  doors  of  her  earthly  Paradise,  two  rooms  with  win- 
dows gay  with  flowers  had  been  opened  for  her  and, 
whilst  there,  she  had  forgotten  all  the  ugly  realities  of 
her  life.  It  was  in  church  that  she  could  always  im- 
agine better.  I  was  not  at  all  surprised  at  that.  The 
Catholic  sanctuary,  with  its  atmosphere  saturated  with 
soul,  its  profound  silence,  its  cleverly  arranged  ob- 
scurity, lends  itself  to  dreams  as  much  as  to  prayer, 
for  the  two  phenomena  are  of  the  same  essence.  This 
youthful  dream  which  had  upheld  Suzanne  has,  perhaps, 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  171 

prepared  her  for  a  higher  destiny.  I  told  her  that  she 
ought  to  have  been  a  novelist ;  I  fancy  it  is  more  likely 
that  she  is  a  future  novelist. 

The  creative  faculty  of  the  dream,  like  all  the  psy- 
chical forces  that  we  incarnate,  has  two  currents  and 
produces  what  we  call,  as  we  do  not  know  any  better, 
good  and  evil.  The  artist  who  would  symbolise  Life 
should  make  a  statue  with  two  faces ;  the  one,  gri- 
macing and  sorrowful;  the  other  one,  beautiful,  serene, 
radiant.  There  are  dreams  which  purify  and  dreams 
which  degrade.  In  the  darkness  of  the  lower  depths 
there  are  dreams  of  sunshine,  and  on  the  heights,  in 
full  sunshine,  there  are  dark  dreams !  Millions  of  crea- 
tures, prisoners  of  poverty,  disease,  and  so  many,  many 
others,  too,  could  never  endure  the  realities  of  Life  if 
it  were  not  for  the  magic  of  the  dream.  But,  whether 
this  be  a  gift  of  anger  or  of  love,  it  must  help  forward 
our  progress. 

This  faculty  which  makes  us  lead  a  double  life  is  not, 
I  am  sure,  the  privilege  of  mankind  alone.  Animals 
dream  in  their  sleep,  there  is  no  doubt  about  that.  We 
have  all  of  us  seen  the  dog  dreaming  and  heard  his 
stifled  bark.  We  have  seen  his  legs  move,  as  though 
he  were  about  to  run,  his  nose  sniff,  his  lips  move,  either 
as  though  he  were  about  to  bite,  or  as  though  he  were 
laughing.  When  the  dog  is  awake,  he  must  have  his 
dreams  too.  Dogs  cannot,  as  we  can,  group  the  vari- 
ous pictures  together,  but  they  see,  as  we  do,  the  pic- 
tures their  brains  have  received:  their  dreams  are  only 
recollections.  The  huge,  wild  beasts,  shut  up  in  their 
cages  in  the  zoological  gardens,  dream.  No  one  who 


172    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

has  watched  and  observed  them  could  doubt  this.  WitH 
their  heads  stretched  forward  on  their  forelegs  they 
see  again,  thanks  to  the  films  that  have  been  formed 
under  their  skulls,  the  jungle  with  its  living  prey,  the 
watering-places  where  they  used  to  quench  their  thirst 
and,  for  a  few  moments,  they  forget  their  captivity. 

In  the  kennels,  the  dogs  see  again  all  the  fine  hunts 
they  have  had,  and  even  those  of  their  ancestors.  The 
picture  of  their  absent  master  soothes  them  and  makes 
the  time  of  waiting  seem  less  long.  The  horse,  in  its 
bad-smelling  stall,  sees  the  green  pastures  of  its  early 
life.  The  cat,  in  its  dignified  immobility,  with  its  tail 
curled  round  its  paws,  and  the  ever-changing  pupils 
of  its  eyes,  gives  us,  more  than  any  other  animal,  the 
certainty  of  the  phenomenon.  It  undoubtedly  dreams 
the  sanguinary  and  loving  dream  of  the  feline  race  and 
it  is  just  as  well  not  to  interrupt  that  dream,  even  by 
a  caress,  for  when  the  cat  rouses  from  it  and  stretches, 
all  its  claws  are  visible  and  reveal  to  us  something  of 
the  nature  of  its  dream. 

It  would  require  years  of  rumination  for  studying 
the  dreams  of  man  and  of  animals  and  I  have  only 
hours  now  at  my  disposal.  Others  will  undertake  this 
work,  no  doubt,  and  I  envy  them,  for  they  will  have 
glimpses  of  the  light  itself  and  I  have  only  seen  the 
shadow  of  that  light. 


CHAPTER  Yin 

ROMANTIC  literature  leads  me  on,  necessarily,  to  love, 
which  is  its  leit  motiv,  its  battle  horse.  It  nourishes 
love  with  its  dreams,  and  it  propagates  it  and  makes  it 
greater  by  means  of  words  and  pictures,  for,  if  I  am 
not  mistaken,  this  is  the  chief  function  of  romantic 
literature. 

Love !  I  cannot  help  laughing  at  the  idea  of  an  old 
woman,  like  me,  being  brought  face  to  face  with  love, 
for  the  purpose  of  studying,  analysing  and  judging  it. 
This  seems  to  me  both  pathetic  and  comic.  When  we 
are  young,  we  feel  love,  but  it  dazzles  us  so  much  that 
we  cannot  see  it.  At  present,  when  the  time  of  "  the 
great  serenity  "  is  here,  and  I  am  outside  of  love's  cur- 
rent for  ever,  I  see  it  objectively.  It  appears  to  me  so 
miraculous,  so  divinely  conceived,  that  I  would  not  ex- 
change my  present  vision  for  the  dreams  of  yore  — * 
and  this  is  very  fortunate  for  me  I 

No  other  people  have  had  so  scientific  an  intuition 
of  love  as  the  Greeks.  All  the  discoveries  we  have  made, 
and  all  those  that  we  shall  make,  will  reveal  the  eternal 
truth  of  it.  The  allegory  with  which  it  inspired  the 
Greeks  has  been  an  inexhaustible  source  of  wonderful 
creations  for  poets  and  artists.  The  modern  mind  can 
still  draw  from  it.  This  truly  divine  allegory  repre- 
sents love  as  a  child  incarnating  a  giant  force  —  the 
attractive  force  which  unites  beings  and  things,  in  or- 
der to  make  them  produce  new  elements.  Eros  is  the 

173 


174    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

little  child  whom  we  never  think  of  mistrusting,  whom 
we  welcome  with  a  smile.  He  throws  his  soft,  supple 
arms  around  his  victim  and  his  embrace  is  that  of  an 
implacable  master,  a  master  with  all  the  tyranny, 
egoism  and  inconstancy  of  a  child.  The  very  at- 
tributes: the  quiver,  the  arrows,  the  torch,  the  band- 
age for  the  eyes,  are  symbols  of  living  things.  Like 
Eros,  we  are  children,  but  our  cerebral  cellules  in- 
carnate creative  force.  Their  radiations  are  the  arrows 
which  call  love  into  being,  or  which  kill  it.  Those 
radiations  are  the  torch  which  kindles  the  passions 
and  they  produce  mirages  that  are  blinding. 

Love  is  still  an  abstract  thing  to  us.  With  more 
or  less  genius  and  more  or  less  talent,  the  various  poets, 
novelists,  musicians  and  painters  have  exploited  it. 
The  word  I  employ  is  vulgar,  but  exact.  These  manu- 
facturers of  the  ideal  have  even  created  artificial  waves 
of  it,  and  humanity  has  drunk  of  them  and  has,  in 
some  cases,  been  intoxicated  by  them.  We  might  well 
think  that  everything  that  there  is  to  say  about  Eros, 
comparatively  speaking,  has  already  been  said,  but,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  nothing  has  yet  been  said.  I  do  not 
pretend  to  be  able  to  pierce  through  the  mystery  of 
the  nature  of  Eros,  but  the  discoveries  of  these  last 
years  enable  me  to  imagine  more  thoroughly  and,  at 
the  risk  of  disgusting  realists  and  being  jeered  at  by 
our  savants,  I  am  going  to  tell  what  I  have  imagined. 
If  there  should  be  a  few  gleams  of  truth  in  what  I  am 
about  to  write,  they  will  be  due  to  pure  intuition,  as 
I  am  only  a  poor  ignorant  woman. 

Where  docs   this   force  come  from   which  sometimes 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE     175 

steals  into  us  treacherously,  and  sometimes  bursts  forth 
without  any  warning,  the  force  which  flings  us  into  the 
arms  of  another  creature,  which  unites  us  or  reunites 
us  to  that  creature  for  a  few  seconds  of  eternity? 
Where  does  this  light  come  from  which  lights  up  our 
spring,  our  summer,  our  autumn  even,  and  the  memory 
of  which  suffices  for  warming  the  winter  of  our  life? 
Where  does  this  force  come  from,  which  takes  us  up 
to  the  very  summits  and  hurls  us  down  into  the  abysses  ? 
Like  the  vital  fluid,  like  the  soul  of  the  Universe,  it 
comes  from  the  Eternal  God,  from  "  our  first  motor." 
It  is  one  of  the  radiations  from  this.  The  photographic 
plate  can  now  catch  the  distant  star.  The  day  will 
come  when  an  apparatus,  sensibilised  to  an  extreme  de- 
gree, will  register  the  divine  wave  and,  in  the  mean- 
time, we  can,  at  any  rate,  comprehend  its  action.  It 
penetrates  the  atom,  the  vegetal,  the  animal,  man.  Like 
the  sun,  it  sets  in  motion  the  living  germs  that  have 
been  put  into  certain  cerebral  cellules  and,  out  of  crea- 
tures, it  makes  creators,  for  love  is  a  sentiment  that  has 
a  sex,  that  even  has  two  sexes.  I  felt  inclined  to  write : 
Love  is  a  sex  that  has  a  sentiment,  but  I  was  afraid  of 
letting  myself  be  tempted  by  the  pleasure  of  saying 
something  more  piquant.  I  called  Eros  to  the  bar  and 
confessed  and  questioned  him  relentlessly.  After  which, 
I  came  to  the  conclusion  that,  generally  speaking,  with 
men  it  is  the  sex  that  has  a  sentiment,  and  that  with 
women,  it  is  the  sentiment  that  has  a  sex.  The  ques- 
tion is  not  one  of  superiority,  but  of  temperament. 
This  accounts  for  the  eternal  difference  between  mas- 
culine and  feminine  love.  When  Nature  has  found  the 


176    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

way  to  synchronise  them,  they  will  be  in  perfect  har- 
mony. In  the  meantime,  they  frequently  produce  cruel 
discords.  This  definition  must  be  a  true  one,  as  it  ex- 
plains the  deeds  and  misdeeds  of  love,  its  nnimality  and 
its  ideality,  its  baseness  and  its  elevation,  its  instinctive 
and  profound  jealousy,  its  inconstancy,  its  fidelity,  its 
cowardice  and  its  bravery.  It  explains  its  contrasts 
which  have  always  astonished  us,  contrasts  which  have 
made  philosophers  speculate,  and  which  have  fed  the 
imagination  of  novelists. 

Have  there  ever  been  any  examples  of  purely  spirit- 
ual love,  such  as  that  of  which  Plato,  the  great  idealist, 
dreamed?  There  has  been  metaphysical  love  such  as 
the  Christian  Catholic  soul  tried  to  produce.  Have 
there  ever  been  examples  of  sexless  love?  I  do  not  think 
so  at  all.  In  order  to  be  convinced  of  this,  we  have 
only  to  read  the  adorable  romance  of  St.  Francis  de 
Sales  and  St.  Chantal  again.  It  is  a  romance  of  saints. 
We  see  how  Eros  dissembled,  how  he  disguised  himself! 
It  was  all  in  vain,  though,  that  he  tried  to  hide  under 
the  violet  robe,  and  under  the  nun's  dress,  he  betrayed 
himself  constantly,  and  the  marvellous  thing  is  that 
now,  after  three  centuries,  he  can  be  felt  in  those  let- 
ters from  the  prelate.  He  comes  out  of  them  living, 
fresh,  young  and  passionate,  just  as  though  he  had  only 
been  imprisoned  there  yesterday.  How  fine  Life  is ! 
Although  the  Bishop  of  Geneva  and  Madame  dc  Chan- 
tal had  risen  to  a  great  height,  they  did  not  succeed 
in  leaving  the  terrestrial  atmosphere,  and  their  love 
had  a  sex  like  that  of  the  ordinary  mortal,  but  with 
this  difference,  that  they  were  its  absolute  masters  and 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE    177 

not  its  slaves.  This  alone  was  very  fine  for  poor  Ter- 
restrians.  Listen,  for  instance  to  this: 

He. — "  My  very  dear  mother,  all  mine,  moy-mesne. 
.  .  .  Good  morning,  my  only  one,  my  very  dear,  in- 
comparably dear,  daughter." 

She. — "  Your  dear  soul,  my  very  dear  father,  my 
only  one — " 

In  order  to  have  such  expressions  as  these,  the  com- 
plete fusion  of  their  beings  must  have  taken  place  in  an 
occult  way.  .We  know  nothing  yet  of  the  workings 
of  Nature.  In  their  letters,  there  is  no  doubt  a  great 
deal  of  literature.  St.  Francis  de  Sales  was  above  all 
in  love  with  the  woman,  or  rather  with  the  feminine  soul. 
I  have  tried,  in  vain,  to  imagine  what  the  meetings  of 
these  lovers,  of  so  rare  a  kind,  must  have  been  like, 
lovers  who  exchanged  such  tender  sentiments  by  letter. 
Must  they  not  have  felt  intense  emotion  when  they  were 
actually  in  the  presence  of  each  other?  Must  they  not 
have  felt  a  certain  embarrassment,  too?  But  the 
Bishop,  with  his  thumb,  could  make  the  sign  of  the  cross 
on  the  forehead  of  "  his  unique  daughter,"  the  mother 
superior  could  kiss  the  episcopal  ring  of  the  father, 
"  dearly  well  beloved,"  and,  by  means  of  these  mystical 
gestures,  they  would  have  called  down  God  between 
them.  They  probably  talked  of  their  common  work: 
"  The  Visitation,"  and  in  this  way  they  could  escape 
from  themselves.  The  elaboration  of  this  work  must 
have  been,  I  feel  sure,  a  powerful  derivative.  They 
gave  it  the  tell-tale  arms  of  a  heart  crowned  with  thorns 
and  pierced  by  two  arrows.  These  arms  speak  clearly 
enough.  The  two  arrows  were,  you  may  be  sure,  those 


178    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

of  Eros.  I  feel  sure  that  the  profane  god  had  never 
before  been  put  to  such  a  test. 

The  publication  of  the  letters  of  St.  Francis  de 
Sales,  is,  I  consider,  a  profanation,  but  they  reveal 
unsuspected  possibilities  in  human  nature,  and  they 
have  helped  me  to  understand  human  nature  better. 

The  phenomenon  of  the  union  of  two  beings,  by  love, 
is  the  most  miraculous  of  all  those  that  we  are  called 
upon  to  live.  How  do  we  love?  How  do  we  cease 
to  love?  Those  are  the  two  questions!  The  sap 
mounts  in  the  human  creature,  and,  at  a  certain  epoch, 
which  is  determined  by  more  or  less  rapid  growth,  the 
living  cells,  which  incarnate  the  attractive  force,  be- 
gin their  work.  Their  vibrations  create,  in  the  brain, 
a  whole  phantasmagoria  of  pictures,  dreams  and  de- 
sires. By  means  of  glances,  smiles,  words,  droll  little 
grimaces,  they  go,  like  the  antennae,  in  search  of  the 
brother  or  sister  cellules  which  are  to  make  their  des- 
tiny happy  or  accursed.  There  is  nothing  in  this 
world  which  appears  to  me  more  tragic  than  this  un- 
conscious pursuit.  They  frequently  search  a  long 
time  for  their  sister  or  brother  cellules,  some  of  them 
never  find  these  and  therefore  remain  sterile,  but  this 
is  exceptional.  For  the  majority,  the  miracle  takes 
place,  and  it  always  takes  place  in  a  different  manner. 
Sometimes  it  happens  that  those  who  are  destined  for 
each  other  meet  in  the  midst  of  the  densest  crowds, 
through  the  closest  network  of  radiations  which  are 
quite  foreign  to  them.  They  make  an  impression  on 
each  other:  the  cellules  of  the  man  receive  or  catch  the 
picture  of  the  woman :  the  cellules  of  the  woman  receive 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE     179 

or  catch  the  picture  of  the  man  and  they  are  then 
invisibly  united. 

The  phenomenon  enters  its  second  phase.  Love  is 
born.  This  hybrid  sentiment  has  unique  and  very 
strange  properties.  It  creates  a  sort  of  halo  round 
its  captives,  which  isolates  them.  They  see  themselves 
alone,  like  Adam  and  Eve,  and  they  can  no  longer  live 
outside  this  halo  without  suffering.  It  clothes  them, 
and  all  which  belongs  to  them,  with  a  special  fluid  which 
transfigures  them  reciprocally,  which  accelerates  the 
beating  of  their  hearts,  exalts  their  senses  and  their 
higher  faculties,  diffuses  through  their  veins  a  para- 
disaical joy  and,  at  certain  moments,  gives  them  an 
intoxication  during  which  neither  time  nor  space  exists 
for  them.  Like  the  juice  of  poppy  capsules,  and  of  the 
grape,  love,  which  is  the  juice  of  the  human  cellules, 
produces  intoxication,  an  intoxication  of  Life,  of  the 
Beyond,  that  of  Happiness  itself.  This  intoxication 
does  not  last.  If  it  did,  it  would  stupefy  or  kill  us. 
Many  of  those  who  have  known  it,  endeavour  to  find 
it  again  by  means  of  fresh  communications,  and  it  is 
just  this  which  causes  unfaithfulness.  It  is  given  to 
the  most  humble  of  creatures  and  to  the  greatest  alike, 
and  God  be  praised  for  this!  Men  and  women  of  the 
people  obtain  it  without  many  words.  Arm  in  arm, 
they  hold  each  other's  hand.  One  comes  across  them 
like  this  seated  on  the  benches  of  the  public  squares  and 
parks.  They  see  nothing  of  what  is  going  on  around 
them,  as  they  are  evidently  elsewhere.  I  said,  one  day, 
to  a  country  girl :  "  You  and  your  sweetheart  are 
very  silent  lovers  !  " 


180    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

"  Oh,  we  arc  too  happy  to  be  able  to  talk ! "  she  re- 
plied, blushing. 

Last  Sunday,  the  chambermaid  who  waits  on  me  in 
my  hotel  had  been  out  for  the  day.  When  she  came 
to  my  room  in  the  evening,  her  face,  which  is  very  pretty, 
was  so  bright,  beaming,  as  it  were,  with  an  inner  joy, 
that  I  had  the  instantaneous  impression  of  love. 
When  I  think  that  microscopic  cellules  can,  under  the 
action  of  invisible  forces,  produce  paradisaical  joys, 
or  infernal  tortures  like  jealousy,  I  am  perfectly  baf- 
fled, as  I  feel  astounded  and  rather  terrified. 

During  this  communion  which  unites  two  creatures, 
physical  exchanges  take  place,  the  profundity  of  which 
we  little  imagine,  and  these  exchanges  are  necessary  to 
Life.  When  this  union  has  given  to  Life  what  it  was 
destined  to  give,  love  either  ceases  or  is  transformed. 
This  is  the  third  phase  of  the  phenomenon.  And  in 
this  phase,  what  hidden  heart-rendings  there  are,  what 
desperate  efforts  to  prolong  happiness.  Sometimes  it 
is  the  picture  of  the  woman  that  fades  away  the  first, 
and  the  man  then  becomes  indifferent  to  her.  He 
neither  sees  her  nor  feels  her  any  longer.  Sometimes 
it  is  the  picture  of  the  man  which  disappears,  and  the 
woman  regains  her  independence  regretfully.  In  both 
instances  it  is  a  case  of  a  burnt-out  ampoule,  a  dead 
cellule.  The  man,  or  the  woman,  who  continues  loving, 
without  any  return  being  possible,  drinks  one  of  the 
bitterest  cups  that  has  ever  been  prepared  for  our 
poor  humanity. 

However  wonderful  love  may  be,  it  is  not  the  noblest 
of  our  sentiments.  It  brings  out  the  alloy  which  is 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  181 

in  our  composition:  our  vanity,  our  egoism.  We  con- 
stantly hear  people  say  that  "  without  love  the  world 
would  come  to  an  end."  I  fancy  that  with  only  love, 
it  would  come  to  an  end  still  more  rapidly,  not  perhaps 
thanks  to  the  lack  of  combatants,  but  through  sheer 
wantonness,  and  its  end  then  would  be  still  more  shame- 
ful. 

To  the  majority  of  society  men  and  women,  love  is 
scarcely  more  than  a  kind  of  sport.  In  the  higher 
classes  the  Don  Juans  are  the  cabotins  of  Love.  In 
the  lower  classes  they  are  the  hooligans  of  it.  This 
type  of  love,  which  incarnates  the  dreams  of  puberty, 
which  certain  poets  have  idealised,  is,  in  reality,  one 
of  the  most  contemptible  and  vulgar  that  exists.  As 
to  the  passionate  lovers,  they  are  the  romantically  sen- 
timental ones,  whose  temperament  makes  victims  of 
them  rather  than  heroes  and  heroines.  We  can  for- 
give them  much,  because  they  have  loved  much. 

Love,  this  master  of  the  Universe,  this  divine  master, 
has  a  whole  crowd  of  grotesque  features  which  show 
up  the  humour  of  Nature.  One  of  these  is  the  game 
which  we  now  call  flirtation  and,  in  animals,  the  pursuit. 
It  is  most  curious  to  study.  The  flirtation  of  adoles- 
cence, which  is  unconscious  and  instinctive,  might  teach 
the  psychological  doctor  a  great  deal.  Youthful  flirta- 
tion is  skilful  and  artistic,  the  woman  is  graceful  at  it, 
and  the  man  ridiculous.  The  flirtation  of  men  and 
women  in  their  maturity  is  pitiful  and  the  flirtation  of 
old  age  odious.  Just  as  there  are,  in  the  firmament, 
stars  that  are  dying  and  stars  that  are  extinct,  so  in 
our  motor  there  are  cellules  that  are  dying  and  those 


182    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

that  are  extinct.  Those  of  youth  and  of  sensual  love, 
for  instance,  die  normally  towards  the  close  of  the  sum- 
mer of  our  life.  With  some  individuals,  they  survive 
until  the  very  middle  of  winter,  and  they  only  produce 
then  repugnant  anomalies,  such  as  old  men  and  women 
passionately  in  love. 

Among  the  wrong  ideas  that  circulate,  that  are  re- 
peated, thanks  to  the  influence  of  suggestion,  and  that 
pervert  people's  judgment,  there  is  one  that  I  specially 
wish  to  denounce. 

People  are  in  the  habit  of  saying  that  marriage  is 
the  tomb  of  love.  The  man,  for  it  must  have  been  a 
man,  who  first  spread  abroad  this  calumny,  knew  very 
little  about  love,  and  about  human  nature. 

Marriage  is,  really,  the  touchstone  of  love.  If  this 
cannot  stand  the  test  of  the  intimacy  of  marriage,  it 
is  not  of  good  alloy.  When  it  has  undergone  the  pro- 
cess of  transformation,  and  come  through  this  test  tri- 
umphantly, it  becomes  conjugal  love,  and  this  is  not 
only  stronger  than  death,  but  stronger  than  old  age. 
This  is  the  love  that  cannot  be  killed  by  any  disillu- 
sions, by  physical  and  moral  disrobing,  by  the  horrors 
of  disease,  the  repetition  of  the  same  gestures  over  and 
over  again,  nor  even  by  deadly  habit  and  custom,  nor 
yet  by  time  and  wrinkles.  It  is  the  golden  liquor  which 
remains  in  the  champagne  glass  when  the  fermentation 
froth  has  subsided,  it  is  the  very  soul  of  the  wine.  If 
one  takes  the  trouble  to  stir  it  with  tender  words,  with 
timely  little  attentions,  with  intelligent  coquetry,  it  will 
always  give  those  lovely,  many-coloured  bubbles  which 
excite  and  delight  the  palate.  Conjugal  love,  like 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  183 

friendship  and  all  the  other  sentiments,  must  be  culti- 
vated. It  is  a  beautiful  plant  which,  only  too  often, 
the  husband  and  wife  let  die,  thanks  to  their  ignorance 
about  what  it  requires,  their  ignorance  about  Natural 
History.  Sometimes  they  give  this  plant  too  much 
sunshine  and  sometimes  too  much  shade.  The  sap  has 
difficulty  in  mounting,  the  leaves  lose  the  brilliancy  of 
vigour  and  the  poor  corollas  wither  away  without  hav- 
ing given  all  the  perfume  they  contained.  People  say 
then  that  it  has  been  killed  by  marriage.  No,  it  has 
been  killed  by  the  married  couple. 

I  remember  very  well  the  impressions  of  a  romantic 
man  who,  in  spite  of  every  one  and  everything,  married 
a  girl,  with  whom  he  had  fallen  in  love.  During  the 
honeymoon,  she  contracted  typhoid  fever  in  a  little 
Italian  town.  He  had  to  nurse  her  himself,  and  so 
he  saw  her  in  all  the  physical  humiliation  which  this 
terrible  disease  inflicts  on  its  victims.  After  telling 
me  all  the  incidents  of  this  first  conjugal  trial,  he  added: 
"  How  little  we  know  ourselves !  I  should  have  thought 
that  I  should  have  been  disenchanted  forever  by  such 
a  thing  and,  on  the  contrary,  I  did  not  even  feel  the 
slightest  disgust.  I  felt  that  Louise  was  not  only  a 
woman,  but  my  wife,  part  of  myself." 

When  I  was  a  girl,  I  thought,  and  even  said,  that  it 
would  be  absolutely  impossible  to  continue  loving  a  hus- 
band who  snored.  One  afternoon,  my  little  dog,  Sa'i'da, 
that  I  adored,  was  asleep  at  my  feet  and  snoring  most 
happily.  I  looked  at  him  and  listened  with  intense 
pleasure  and,  finally,  knelt  down  beside  him  and  said: 
"  What  a  good  sleep  you  are  having,  my  darling !  "  and 


184    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

then  I  added,  foolishly :  "  And  how  well  you  snore !  " 
An  old  friend  of  mine  who  happened  to  be  there,  and 
who  had  often  heard  my  childish  remark,  began  to 
laugh. 

"  You  see,"  she  said,  looking  at  me  over  her  spec- 
tacles, "  when  one  is  in  love  with  one's  husband,  one 
thinks  that  he  snores  well  too.  Do  you  understand 
now?" 

Yes,  I  understood. 

"Conjugal  love  is  very  great  then!"  I  said,  amazed 
and  inwardly  delighted.  On  the  objective  screen,  I  can 
see  myself  now,  sitting  on  my  heels  and  making  this 
pleasant  discovery.  And  I  can  see  myself  at  present, 
towards  the  end  of  my  life,  not  sitting  on  my  heels, 
alas,  but  at  my  writing-table,  repeating  for  the  bene- 
fit of  my  readers:  "  Conjugal  love  is  very  great!" 
The  contrast  between  these  two  films  amuses  me,  but 
makes  me  a  little  sad,  too. 

I  know  a  fine  pair  of  lovers.  The  man  is  ninety  years 
old  and  the  woman  eighty-five.  One  day,  urged  on  by 
my  relentless  curiosity,  I  asked  this  wife,  who  has  had 
an  exceptionally  happy  life,  whether  she  would  like  to 
be  young  again  ?  "  Yes,"  she  said  promptly,  "  for  one 
thing  only,  so  that  I  might  marry  my  husband  again." 

I  shook  hands  with  Monsieur  B .  "  Your  wife  has 

just  paid  you  the  very  finest  compliment  you  have  ever 
had,"  I  remarked.  He  looked  at  me  in  a  bewildered 
way,  for  he  is  deaf  and  had  not  heard  the  fine  compli- 
ment. I  repeated  it  to  him  and  his  face  lighted  up. 
The  old  couple  exchanged  a  look  and  a  smile  which  made 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE     185 

them  young  again  for  a  few  seconds.  At  the  bottom 
of  their  glass,  in  which  so  little  of  the  liquor  remained, 
I  saw  the  beautiful  bubbles  appear  once  more,  with  all 
the  changing  colours  of  the  divine  fluid. 

A  love  marriage  may  become  a  marriage  of  reason 
and  a  marriage  of  reason  may  become  a  love  marriage. 
This  miracle  takes  place  more  often  than  we  imagine. 
Marriage  is  the  mingling  of  two  lives,  according  to  the 
beautiful,  old  expression.  When  the  woman  is  no 
longer  a  woman  to  any  one  else,  she  still  is  to  her  trav- 
elling-companion, and  will  be  to  her  last  hour. 

Outside  marriage,  Eros  is  a  delightful  child,  but 
fickle,  cruel  and  egoistic.  In  marriage,  he  is  a  man. 
He  has  the  right  of  lighting  the  fire  of  the  family  hearth, 
that  altar  on  which  the  Greeks  and  Romans  always 
kept  the  fire  burning.  The  head  of  the  family  alone 
had  the  privilege  of  adding  fresh  fuel  to  it  and  it  could 
only  be  extinguished  with  the  family  itself.  The  so- 
called  free-thinkers  believe,  or  pretend  to  believe,  that 
the  marriage  ceremony  adds  nothing  to  human  happi- 
ness. They  are  mistaken,  for  it  adds  to  it  the  conse- 
cration which  gives  it  grandeur  and  dignity.  That 
ceremony,  by  which  two  persons  take  the  community 
as  witnesses  of  their  union  and  ask  for  the  blessing  of 
God  and  the  protection  of  the  law,  makes  of  them  and 
their  offspring  active  members  of  that  same  community. 
Those  who,  for  reasons  which  are  always  pitiful,  dis- 
pense with  all  this,  remain  isolated,  on  the  margin  of 
life,  as  it  were.  The  man,  more  than  the  woman,  al- 
ways feels  a  certain  shame.  It  is  easy,  too,  to  prove 


186    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

that  there  are  more  dramas,  sorrows  and  crimes  as  the 
result  of  free  love  than  of  consecrated  unions.  This  is 
not  a  chastisement,  but  a  mere  consequence. 

The  desire  for  other  people's  property  is  a  primordial 
instinct,  one  of  the  principal  instruments  of  the  strug- 
gle which  keeps  up  Life  and  gives  shades  to  it,  both  on 
our  own  planet  and,  probably,  on  many  others  too. 
On  my  balcony,  every  day,  I  see  certain  sparrows  which 
are  more  perverse,  I  might  say  more  human,  than  the 
others.  There  is  a  table  for  them  lavishly  supplied 
with  food,  but  they  only  covet  the  crumb  that  a  brother 
is  eating.  I  see  such  sparrows  dart  on  that  crumb, 
snatch  it  away  in  the  most  daring  and  pretty  way  pos- 
sible, and  finish  it  with  evident  enjoyment,  as  though 
theft  made  it  more  savoury.  The  instinct  which  makes 
a  man  desire  his  neighbour's  wife  is  of  the  same  kind. 
The  ancestor  was  the  victim  of  this  instinct  just  as  the 
husband  of  to-day  is.  The  cave  and  the  hut  were  dis- 
honoured by  adultery  just  as  the  house  and  the  palace 
frequently  are  now-a-days.  In  the  far-back  times, 
there  were,  doubtless,  daring  and  courageous  love- 
thieves  who  carried  Eve  away  with  a  high  hand,  who 
kept  her,  fed  her,  clothed  her  nakedness,  made  neck- 
laces with  which  to  adorn  her,  and  gave  her  a  couch 
of  fleeces  or  of  leaves.  There  were  others  who  were 
weaker,  less  manly,  and  who  stole  into  Adam's  nest, 
whilst  he  was  away  hunting,  and  contented  themselves 
with  seducing  his  companion.  The  primitive  struggle 
between  males  for  the  possession  of  a  woman  must  have 
been  ferocious,  but  it  certainly  had  some  grandeur 
about  it ;  in  our  times  it  is  paltry  and,  more  often  than 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  187 

not,  grotesque.  From  my  point  of  view,  in  the  theft 
of  love,  it  is  the  thief  and  not  the  one  who  is  robbed 
who  appears  ridiculous.  This  impression,  which  is  ab- 
solutely sincere,  is  not  on  account  of  the  moral  sense, 
but  of  my  sense  of  humour,  which  is  always  tickled  by 
any  disproportion.  The  deceived  husband  inspires  me 
with  pity,  the  lover  either  makes  me  laugh  or  he  dis- 
gusts me,  as  he  descends  to  the  rank  of  the  parasite. 
He  is  the  man  who  hides  under  the  conjugal  bed,  who 
comes  out  of  some  dark  corner,  haggard  looking,  livid 
with  fright,  adorned  perhaps  with  spiders'  webs,  the 
man  who  may  be  turned  out  of  doors  in  his  pyjamas. 
He  certainly  makes  me  laugh.  He  may  be  the  man 
too,  who  drinks  out  of  another  man's  glass  —  and  knows 
it  —  or  the  one  who  is  in  love  with  a  woman  whom  an- 
other man  is  feeding,  dressing  and  protecting.  A  man 
of  this  kind  disgusts  me.  All  this  is  ridiculous.  I  have 
also  noticed  that  at  the  commencement  of  a  liaison, 
the  man  always  has  a  glorious  air.  After  a  little  time, 
he  does  not  hold  his  head  quite  so  high,  sometimes  he 
goes  about  with  a  bowed  head  even,  and  his  very  mous- 
tache betrays  his  state  of  mind,  which  is  by  no  means 
an  enviable  one.  He  gradually  loses  his  self-assurance 
and  his  easy-going  air,  for  he  is  no  longer  a  master, 
but  a  slave.  Dramatic  authors  and  novelists  do  not 
see  in  this  way,  as  they  still  have  the  ancestor's  sub- 
jective judgment.  When  once  they  begin  to  look  at 
life  under  the  objective  angle,  that  angle  which  shows 
up  all  things  as  they  are,  the  lover  will  appear  to  them 
as  the  truly  comic  person  in  the  adultery  drama.  He 
will  be  a  new  target  for  their  flashes  of  wit,  and  they 


188    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

will  then  become  professors  of  morality.  A  finer  and 
more  beneficent  evolution  could  not  be  imagined  than 
that. 

With  the  old  Romans,  the  wife's  misconduct  did  not 
stain  the  husband's  honour,  and  that  was  only  just. 
One  may  steal  a  man's  wife,  but  one  cannot  steal  his 
probity,  his  loyalty,  all  which  goes  to  make  what  we 
call  honour.  The  parasite  may  walk  over  his  back 
and  even  over  his  head,  without  diminishing  his  genius 
or  his  intellectual  power.  The  greatest  of  men  have 
been  deceived  by  the  most  insignificant.  Ca?sar  and 
Napoleon  were,  but  that  did  not  lower  them. 

The  husband  only  seems  ridiculous  to  me  when,  in- 
stead of  treating  the  lover  to  kicks  and  blows,  like 
a  common  thief,  he  challenges  him  to  a  duel  and  thus 
gives  him  the  opportunity  of  raising  himself  and  of 
showing  off  his  courage.  The  woman  would  soon  cease 
to  care  for  a  man  who  had  just  been  ignominiously 
knocked  down,  but  she  adores  the  one  who  fights  for 
her  sake.  Weapons,  too,  ought  to  be  reserved  for 
nobler  quarrels.  If  only  the  law  compelled  the  lover 
to  keep  and  maintain  the  woman  he  has  stolen,  love- 
crimes  would  be  less  frequent,  but  it  is  men  who  make 
the  laws,  and  the  gods  who  inspire  them  have  constant 
need  of  elements  for  the  struggle  that  we  must  live  out. 

No  phenomenon  of  our  existence  shows  up  better 
than  love  and  marriage  the  inanity  and  childishness  of 
the  belief  in  free-will,  and  the  impossibility  of  it. 
There  is  no  need  to  be  very  learned  in  philosophy  to 
understand  that  the  force  which  unites  creatures  could 
only  be  in  the  hands  of  their  Creator.  It  is  always  the 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  189 

Providence  of  God,  Nature  with  a  capital  N  which, 
by  the  right  or  the  left  hand,  "  gives  this  man  to  this 
woman  and  this  woman  to  this  man."  It  is  Providence 
or  Nature  who  separates  them,  who  elaborates  cruel 
dramas,  delightful  idylls,  worthy  or  unworthy  love  af- 
fairs, happy  marriages  and  woeful  marriages.  In  the 
handling  of  this  force  which  makes  our  fate  for  us,  it 
reveals  its  combative  spirit,  the  terrifying  subtlety  of 
its  imagination,  its  humour,  its  severity  and  its  mercy. 
It  piles  up  obstacles  between  those  to  whom  it  has  given 
irresistible  affinities,  it  unites  beings  who  are  totally 
unlike  each  other,  it  yokes  them  together  like  dachs- 
hunds. One  wants  to  go  to  the  right,  the  other  to 
the  left;  the  one  is  quick  and  the  other  slow;  the  one 
scents  things  and  the  other  is  quite  indifferent  to  every- 
thing. It  is  only  after  very  many  skirmishes,  after  a 
whole  crowd  of  mutual  concessions,  that  they  manage 
to  walk  along  side  by  side.  If  they  cannot  manage 
this,  the  stronger  of  the  two  slips  his  or  her  head  out 
of  the  collar  and  escapes.  This  means  divorce  and  un- 
happiness.  And  what  a  variety  of  themes  the  Divine 
Novelist  gives  us !  We  see  certain  heroes  and  heroines 
absolutely  intoxicated  with  love.  They  consider  each 
other  perfect  in  beauty  and  goodness.  As  soon  as  the 
intoxication  is  over,  they  do  not  recognise  each  other; 
he  is  no  longer  He  and  she  is  no  longer  She.  Destiny 
has  played  its  game  out,  a  man  of  worth  has  chosen  a 
companion  who  is  unworthy  of  him,  and  a  superior 
woman  has  married  an  imbecile.  What  is  still  more 
disconcerting  is  that  when  Providence  has  arranged  a 
fine  human  happiness,  it  destroys  it  again.  The  Will 


190    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

which  mingles  lives  in  this  way  knows  the  physical  and 
psychical  chemistry  of  them,  every  amalgam  can  only 
be  for  one  purpose,  our  progress  and  our  happiness. 

Many  years  ago  I  had  an  opportunity  of  seeing  how 
Nature  sometimes  gives  "  this  man  to  this  woman  and 
this  woman  to  this  man."  Although  I  never  thought 
then  of  studying  the  proceeding  as  a  philosopher,  it 
made  an  impression  on  me  that  I  never  forgot.  My 
thoughts  have  often  gone  back  to  it  and  so  revived  it 
in  my  memory,  probably  for  the  sake  of  this  chapter 
for  which  it  was  intended  to  help,  as  everything  does 
help. 

The  incident  took  place  at  the  house  of  a  friend,  in 
a  town,  the  name  of  which  I  will  not  mention.  After 
a  small  dinner-party,  we  were  all  in  the  drawing-room 
sitting  round  one  of  those  wood  fires,  the  gaiety  of 
which  those  who  come  after  us  will  never  know.  We 
were  looking  forward  to  the  arrival  of  the  after  dinner 
guests,  as  we  knew  they  would  bring  us  the  latest  po- 
litical and  social  news.  Presently  they  began  to  arrive 
and,  among  others,  a  young  lieutenant  who  was  not 
one  of  the  usual  guests  of  the  house.  Our  hostess  made 
him  very  welcome.  I  heard  him  giving  her  news  of  his 
family  and  telling  her  how  delighted  he  was  at  having 
been  sent  to  the  garrison  he  preferred.  He  was  about 
twenty-six  or  twenty-eight,  tall,  slight,  with  plenty  of 
muscle.  He  looked  like  a  soldier  and  a  gentleman. 
He  had  dark  hair  and  a  face  with  regular,  strong  fea- 
tures, of  the  aquiline  type,  softened  by  blue  eyes  with 
large  pupils  full  of  light  and  youth.  Just  as  I  was 
saying  to  myself  that  he  must  be,  or  that  he  would  be, 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  191 

in  the  future,  loved  passionately,  a  woman,  who  was  a 
perfect  vision  of  beauty,  appeared  in  the  doorway, 
framed,  as  it  were,  by  the  curtains.  She  stood  still  for 
a  few  seconds,  probably  to  be  admired.  My  retina  had 
time  to  photograph  her,  so  that  she  appears  quite  living 
to  me  now.  I  can  see  her  quite  well,  in  her  princess 
robe  of  ivory  satin.  I  can  see  her  emeralds,  her  per- 
fect shoulders,  her  beautiful  features  and  her  magnifi- 
cent dark  eyes.  On  her  arrival,  there  was  one  of  those 
eager  movements  in  the  drawing-room  which  are  always 
accorded  to  the  favourites  of  the  hour. 

"  Pauline,  all  alone ! "  exclaimed  the  mistress  of  the 
house,  advancing  to  meet  her  guest. 

"  Yes,  all  alone,"  answered  Madame  V .  "  I 

ought  never  to  come  through  your  street  on  my  way  to 
the  Opera,  for,  whenever  I  see  the  light  in  your  windows, 
I  am  bound  to  come  up.  I  cannot  possibly  help  it. 
They  are  giving  that  blessed  Prophet.  Charles  did  not 
want  to  miss  the  overture,  as  he  has  a  mania  for  over- 
tures, so  I  asked  him  to  drop  me  here.  He  will  send 
the  carriage  back  for  me." 

No,  she  ought  not  to  have  driven  along  that  street, 
poor  woman,  for  on  that  night,  this  street  was  to  take 
her  a  long,  long  way!  After  talking  to  her  for  a 
few  minutes,  my  friend,  on  turning  her  head,  saw  the 
young  officer  still  standing  up.  She  beckoned  to  him 

and  introduced  him  to  Madame  V in  a  few  friendly 

words.  He  bowed  and  kissed  the  ungloved  hand  she 
held  out  to  him.  I  have  no  idea  what  philter  Nature 
slipped  into  that  kiss,  but  its  effect  was  striking.  I 
saw  the  young  man  turn  pale  and  the  woman  blush,  the 


192    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

blue  eyes  gaze  into  the  dark  eyes,  the  dark  eyes  en- 
deavour to  shield  themselves  by  lowering  their  lids  and 
then,  as  though  subjugated,  surrender  themselves  to 
the  blue  eyes.  It  was  a  veritable  short  circuit.  I  had 
a  sudden  intuition  that  the  two  beings  before  me  had 
just  taken  possession  of  each  other.  The  idea  made 
me  smile  stupidly.  I  was  incapable  then  of  under- 
standing the  real  beauty  of  the  phenomenon. 

During    the    rest   of    the   evening,    the    attitude    of 

Madame   V and   of   Count   B confirmed  the 

correctness  of  my  intuition.  I  saw  them  stroll  into  the 
conservatory,  leading  out  of  the  drawing-room,  and 
talk  to  each  other  instead  of  joining  in  the  general 
conversation.  It  was  as  though  they  were  already 
wrapped  round  by  the  divine  fluid  and  consequently 
indifferent  to  what  people  thought  and  said  of  them. 
The  young  wife  forgot  all  about  the  Opera,  the  Prophet 
and  her  husband.  She  did  not  leave  until  about  half- 
past  eleven  and  the  young  lieutenant  accompanied  her 
to  her  carriage.  This  extraordinary  conduct  surprised 
even  the  older  society  people  who  were  thefe.  They 
felt  that  there  was  a  scandal  in  the  air,  and  they  were 
not  mistaken.  It  was  not  long  before  there  was  a 

scandal  and  a  famous  one.     Madame  V belonged 

to  a  very  Puritanical  set.  She  had  passed  through 
the  fire  of  various  ardent  admirations  without  being 
scorched.  She  was  the  mother  of  a  girl  of  fifteen,  so 
that  she  ought  to  have  been  safe.  When  it  was  evi- 
dent that  she  was  in  love  with  a  mere  lieutenant,  a  man 
much  younger  than  she  was,  and  in  love  to  such  a 
degree  that  she  braved  public  opinion  and  seemed  likely 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  193 

to  bring  dishonour  on  her  own  family,  the  stupefac- 
tion became  general.  Conversation,  everywhere,  turned 
on  her  imprudence  anH  the  daring  things  she  did.  She 
was,  nevertheless,  treated  with  a  certain  indulgence,  as 
she  was  really  a  good  sort  and  then,  too,  she  appeared 
so  unconscious  of  her  delinquencies  and  so  frankly 
happy.  This  love  affair  was  like  the  last  flame  of  her 
youth.  It  gave  a  brilliancy,  a  warmth  and  a  magnetism 
to  her  beauty  which  disarmed  morality  itself.  Apropos 
of  this,  I  was  witness  to  what  must  certainly  be  a  psy- 
chological rarity.  Her  husband's  family,  instead  of 
joining  in  the  chorus  of  those  who  blamed  her,  instead 
of  disowning  her,  gathered  round  her,  trying  to  cover 
her  with  all  its  respectability,  saving  her  thus  from 
going  further  astray  and  perhaps  even  from  leaving 
home.  I  fancy  that  she  had  something  to  do  with  the 

departure  of  Count  B .     He  was  promoted  and,  as 

soon  as  he  was  a  captain,  he  was  sent  to  another  garri- 
son. As  to  the  husband,  he  was  not  like  the  husband 
on  the  stage,  as  he  was  quite  aware  of  his  wife's  faith- 
lessness, but  religious  faith  made  a  super-man  of  him. 
It  appears  he  was  more  afflicted  at  the  thought  of  his 
wife  losing  her  soul  than  at  the  thought  of  his  dis- 
honour. And  in  order  to  redeem  this  soul  that  was  so 
dear  to  him,  he  prayed  unceasingly  and  devoted  himself 
to  good  works.  This  beautiful  thing  became  known 
and  soon  gave  rise  to  all  kinds  of  stupid  jeering.  One 
day,  I  heard  it  being  discussed  by  a  few  men  of  the 
world.  One  of  them,  who  was  an  old  sinner  himself, 
suddenly  said :  "  Well,  all  I  can  say  is  that  any  savage 
could  do  what  either  you  or  I  would  surely  do  in  a 


194    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

similar  case,  but  to  act  in  the  way  Charles  is  acting, 
one  must  be  devilishly  superior."  The  silence  that  fol- 
lowed this  remark  proved  to  me  that  it  had  struck 
home. 

Fresh  scandals  had  made  people  almost  forget  this 

one,  when  it  was  announced  that  Madame  V was 

about  to  become  a  mother  once  more.  This  was  a  little 
too  much.  Society  was  seriously  indignant  and,  as  a 
proof  of  its  own  virtue,  blamed  this  event  unanimously. 
The  unfortunate  husband's  family  continued  its  heroic 
conduct  and  when  the  child,  a  fine  boy,  was  born,  it  was 
welcomed  like  the  most  legitimate  of  offspring.  Out- 
siders examined  the  poor  baby's  face  eagerly,  in  order 
to  discover  the  secret  of  its  origin.  Its  blue  eyes  did 
not  fail  to  call  forth  smiles  and  jokes  of  the  worst  taste 
possible. 

After  her  confinement,  Madame  V had  phlebitis. 

She  had  to  lie  down  for  some  weeks  and  a  clot  of  blood 
then  proved  fatal.  Romantic  people  were  quite  sure 
that  she  had  simply  died  of  grief.  A  halo  was  soon 
formed  round  the  beautiful  dead  woman,  and  her  funeral 
was  that  of  a  victim  of  love  and  not  of  a  guilty  wife. 

When  I  saw  the  little  "  intruder "  again,  he  was 
ten  years  old,  and  his  eyes  certainly  were  blue,  implac- 
ably blue,  and  they  were  so  like  Count  B —  — Js  eyes  that 
they  gave  me  a  shock.  I  understood  immediately  the 
atrocious  grief  that  this  living  proof  of  his  wife's  trea- 
son must  cause  M.  V .  The  faithlessness  of  a  wife 

had  never  seemed  to  me  so  criminal  before.  When  once 
I  had  become  convinced  that  we  do  not  make  our  des- 
tinies, I  understood  that  Madame  V—  -  had  merely 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  195 

lived  out  one  of  the  plans  of  Providence.  I  often  saw 
her  again  in  my  mind,  just  as  she  was  that  evening 
when  she  arrived  in  my  friend's  drawing-room,  beau- 
tiful, happy  and  unconscious,  oh,  so  unconscious  of 
what  awaited  her.  I  saw  her  smiling,  as  she  held  out 
her  hand  for  the  kiss  which  contained  her  warrant  of 
dishonour  and  death,  and  I  went  on  my  way  asking  my- 
self "Why?  Why  all  this?" 

Was  it  the  reply  to  this  question  that  came  to  me 
eighteen  years  later?  Thanks  to  what  we  wrongly  call 
chance,  I  had  occasion  to  go  back  to  that  town  where 
the  tragic  episode  had  taken  place.  I  had  scarcely  ar- 
rived when  I  heard  people  talking  of  Captain  V . 

A  dangerous  expedition  to  the  heart  of  Asia  had  made 
of  him  the  hero  of  the  day.  The  scandal  which  had  at- 
tended his  birth  was  forgotten,  for  so  many  similar 
waves  had  swept  over  that  one.  His  mother's  husband 
had  been  dead  a  long  time.  His  elder  sister,  who  had 
been  like  a  mother  to  him,  was  enjoying  his  triumph  in 
perfect  ignorance.  The  young  explorer  was  to  tell  the 
story  of  his  expedition  as  a  public  lecture.  My  desire 
to  see  and  to  hear  the  blue-eyed  "  intruder  "  can  readily 
be  imagined.  The  lecture  was  a  society  event  and,  in 
order  to  get  a  seat,  I  had  to  take  steps  which  went 
against  the  grain.  This  did  not  deter  me  and  I  suc- 
ceeded in  obtaining  a  seat.  My  novelist's  heart  beat 
as  fast  as  the  heart  of  a  woman  in  love  when  I  saw  a 
distinguished,  martial  figure  appear  on  the  platform,  a 
figure  which  was  the  living  reproduction  of  the  hand- 
some lieutenant  I  had  admired  one  evening,  thirty  years 
previously.  The  aquiline  line  of  the  nose,  the  blue 


196    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

eyes  with  large  pupils,  the  bold  turn  of  the  moustache, 
nothing  was  wanting  and,  on  this  manly  face,  I  fancied 
I  could  see  the  mother's  pretty,  fleeting  smile.  The 
thin  face,  tanned  with  the  sun,  and  slightly  yellow,  the 
precocious  wrinkles  and  the  few  hairs  that  had  turned 
prematurely  white  told  of  the  suffering  that  had  been 
endured,  of  the  effort  that  had  been  given.  The  result 
of  the  effort  was  shown  to  us  by  photographs  and  the 
cinematograph.  On  the  screen  we  saw  landscapes  that 
were  both  beautiful  and  desolate-looking,  and  then,  low 
on  the  ground,  carved  stonework,  pieces  of  columns, 
steps  and  all  the  ruins  of  a  forgotten  city.  I  looked 
from  the  picture  to  the  lecturer  and  I  understood,  or 
I  believed  that  I  understood.  In  order  to  create  this 
agent  of  force,  Providence  had  undoubtedly  needed  cer- 
tain physical  and  intellectual  qualities.  It  had  only 
been  able  to  obtain  these  by  mingling  the  lives  of  the 

young  .lieutenant  and  Madame  V .     It  had  done 

this  and  it  had  a  right  to  do  it.  It  seemed  to  me  that 
I  had  the  "  because  "  to  my  "  why."  I  felt  a  little  pride 
when  I  said  to  myself  that  I  alone,  in  this  big  assembly, 
knew  Nature's  secret. 

Did  I  alone  know  it?  Just  at  that  moment,  my  eyes 
fell  on  an  officer  of  high  rank,  a  general,  who  was  at 
the  very  end  of  the  row  in  which  I  was  sitting.  I  had 
an  inward  start  and  was  sure  that  I  was  not  alone  in 
knowing  Nature's  secret,  for  Nature's  collaborator  was 
there.  His  hair  and  moustache  had  turned  grey,  his 
complexion  was  yellow,  his  eyelids  wrinkled  and  there 
were  dark  circles  round  his  eyes,  but,  with  his  aquiline 
profile,  his  upright  figure  and  his  racial  slendcrncss,  he 


197 

still  gave  a  fine  impression  of  vigour.  I  did  not  hear 
another  word  of  the  lecture.  This  man  heard  it, 
though.  I  would  have  paid  a  high  price  for  some  appa- 
ratus capable  of  registering  the  radiations  of  his 
cerebral  cellules.  What  a  magnificent  scale  of  senti- 
ments and  emotions  it  would  have  transmitted  for  me,  a 
scale  in  which  there  would  have  been  paternal  affection, 
pride,  grief,  and  regret.  I  could  only  catch  the  reflex 
action  of  all  those  beautiful  sentiments.  I  saw  the 
delicate  nostrils  dilate,  the  moustache  quiver,  the  white 
gloved  hands,  resting  on  the  hilt  of  the  sword,  relax 
their  hold  and  then  clench  the  hilt  more  firmly.  Was 
he  living  over  again  the  love  of  his  early  manhood? 
Could  he  see  the  woman  again  whose  life  he  had  taken? 
I  hoped  so.  How  little  he  guessed  that,  just  a  few  steps 
away  from  him,  there  was  an  eye-witness  of  that  first 
meeting,  of  that  love  at  first  sight,  the  result  of  which 
had  been  the  birth  of  his  son.  With  the  last  word  of 
the  lecture,  the  General  rose.  I  thought  he  was  going 
at  once  to  the  platform,  like  many  others,  to  shake 

hands  with  the  lecturer,  Captain  V ,  but  he  stole 

away  by  a  side  door.  I  knocked  against  my  neigh- 
bours in  my  great  haste  to  follow  him.  I  saw  him  hail 
a  carriage,  fling  himself  down  and  throw  back  his  head 
as  though  to  take  a  long  breath.  He  had  no  doubt 
been  afraid  of  betraying  himself;  he  had  been  afraid, 
too,  lest  the  resemblance  between  himself  and  the  lec- 
turer should  strike  one  of  his  own  contemporaries  and 
recall  to  his  mind  the  famous  adventure. 

Life  had  just  explained  Life  to  me.     It  would  always 
explain  it,  I  fancy,  if  only  we  knew  how  to  think,  and 


198    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

if  we  could  only  watch  it  long  enough.  Law-breaking 
love  affairs,  and  whirlwinds  of  passion  bring  to  Life  a 
huge  contribution  of  grief  and  sorrow,  and  Life  has 
need  of  all  this  probably.  Did  not  Jesus  know  this 
when  he  uttered  the  strange  words :  "  Woe  unto  the 
world  because  of  offences!  for  it  must  needs  be  that 
offences  come.** 

Like  the  heroines  of  the  Greek  theatre,  we  are  only 
great  because  we  live  out  our  destinies,  and  because 
these  destinies  are  part  of  the  divine  plan.  Phedre, 
obeying  her  own  instincts,  would  have  been  a  vicious 
and  vulgar  woman,  but  Phedre,  as  Destiny's  holocaust, 
excites  our  pity  and  admiration.  She  is  invested  with 
the  tragic  beauty  which  has  inspired  masterpieces. 

The  Providence  of  God  is  not  blind,  but  far-seeing; 
it  cannot  have  any  other  end  in  view  than  our  final 
good,  as  we  are  not  doomed  to  death,  but  doomed  to 
progress.  The  day  will  come  when  man  will  no  longer 
see  Eros  as  a  child ;  man  will  then  be  aware  of  his  true 
role,  of  his  divinity.  From  that  day  forth  he  will  no 
longer  dare  to  drag  love  through  the  gutter  or  to  de- 
base it  by  pornography.  He  will,  on  the  contrary,  bring 
the  purest  incense  to  its  altar.  However  far  off  that 
day  may  be,  it  will  come  eventually,  for  Eros  and  man 
must  evolve  and  must  grow. 


CHAPTER  IX 

AFTER  Love  —  Religion !  I  have  now  arrived  with  my 
poor  little  barque,  "  The  Why,"  at  the  most  danger- 
ous cape  of  my  cruise,  that  of  Religion.  It  ought  to 
be  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  but  it  is  still  the  Cape  of 
Tempests.  I  did  my  utmost  to  avoid  it,  partly  from 
intellectual  laziness  and  partly  out  of  self-distrust. 
"  The  Other  One  "  brought  me  pitilessly  back  to  it, 
and  there  is  no  way  of  resisting  "  The  Other  One." 

The  psychical  force  which  attracts  man  towards 
God,  the  divine  magnetism,  is  one  of  the  greatest  forces 
of  the  Universe.  It  acts  on  the  human  soul  like  other 
forces  act  on  the  Ocean  and  on  the  Earth  itself;  it 
rouses  the  soul,  it  stirs  it  to  its  very  depths  and  it  has 
created  that  spiritual  dream,  Religion.  This  dream 
has  gone  on  developing  and  has  been  transformed  with 
the  ages.  It  has  been  as  varied  as  the  different  races, 
as  the  different  individuals.  It  has  been  affected  by 
climate,  by  surroundings,  by  the  conditions  of  existence. 
It  has  been  coarse  and  naif,  cruel  and  gentle,  beneficent 
and  harmful.  It  has  been,  above  all  things,  an  instru- 
ment of  struggle,  of  progress  and  of  civilisation.  The 
Terrestrian  was  to  be  not  only  a  manufacturer  of 
stories,  but  a  manufacturer  of  gods.  In  some  of  his 
cerebral  cellules,  strange  figures  took  shape,  some  of 
them  hideous,  grimacing,  of  every  kind  of  ugliness,  and 

then  of  every  kind  of  beauty.     He  has  reproduced  these 

199 


200          THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

figures  in  clay,  in  wood,  in  brass,  in  gold  and  in  silver. 
He  has  lent  them  his  own  feelings,  his  virtues,  his  vices ; 
he  has  given  them  his  soul.  And,  thanks  to  an  incom- 
prehensible auto-suggestion,  they  became  living  for  him, 
they  became  his  masters,  his  gods.  And  in  front  of 
these  gods,  which  had  come  from  his  own  brain  and  been 
made  by  his  own  hands,  he  worshipped  and  implored. 
He  imagined  that  they  were  endowed  with  supernatural 
power.  In  order  to  be  in  favour  with  them,  he  offered 
them  the  best  of  his  possessions,  he  built  altars,  chapels 
and  temples  of  all  styles  to  them.  Thanks  to  this 
miraculous  illusion,  when  our  tiny  planet  passes  in 
front  of  the  beautiful  constellations  of  its  spring,  sum- 
mer, autumn  and  winter,  it  presents  to  them  church  and 
cathedral  spires,  cupolas  and  domes  of  pagodas  and  of 
mosques.  And  these  spires  and  cupolas,  invisible  in 
space,  are  nevertheless  the  antenna?,  which,  like  those 
of  wireless  telegraphy,  put  it  in  communication  with 
the  Beyond,  with  the  very  soul  of  the  Universe. 

The  people  of  the  nation  say :  "  All  religions  are 
good,"  and  they  are  right.  They  frequently  are  right, 
for  the  soul  of  the  people  was  sown  with  elementary 
truths.  Yes,  all  religions  are  good,  and  all  of  them 
have  been  and  are  necessary.  They  ennoble,  and  they 
even  confer  nobility  on  man,  as  they  give  him  a  special 
dignity,  for  they  create  two  wonderful  forces  within 
him :  faith  and  hope.  All  religions,  even  the  very 
crudest,  contain  a  spark  of  revelation.  Each  one  is  a 
beam  from  the  same  fascicle  of  light.  In  this  one,  just 
as  in  the  Roman  fasces,  there  is  always  a  hatchet,  as 
we  are  still  barbarous  children.  Some  da}*,  perhaps, 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  201 

love  will  be  found  there,  and,  on  that  day,  we  shall 
know  more  than  we  now  do  about  Life. 

In  the  various  communities  of  the  Terrestrians,  there 
have  been  some  beings  on  whom  the  divine  force  has 
acted  in  a  special  way.  They  have  had  metaphysical 
dreams,  just  as  the  novelist  has  romantic  dreams. 
From  the  substance  of  these  dreams,  they  have  drawn 
doctrines  and  laws  and  then,  endowed  with  a  mysteri- 
ous power,  they  have  subordinated  millions  of  creatures. 
Every  religion  is  the  metaphysical  dream  of  a  nation. 
Among  the  great  spiritual  dreams  of  the  Earth,  was 
the  Egyptian  one  which  created  Osiris,  the  God  unique, 
beautiful,  just  and  perfect,  a  dream  in  which  we  have 
a  glimpse  of  the  ladder  of  progression  and  of  eternal 
life. 

Then  there  was  Zoroaster's  dream,  and  a  very  pro- 
found one  it  was.  The  religious  legislator  of  Persia 
attributed  all  the  events  of  this  world  to  the  struggle 
of  two  primordial  principles  of  Good  and  Evil,  and,  at 
the  end  of  the  centuries,  he  promised  the  victory  of 
Good.  He  saw,  in  purifying  fire,  the  symbol  of  divinity. 
His  religion  is  still  professed  in  India  by  the  Parsees, 
who  have  preserved  its  elevated  morality.  A  Hindu 
lady  translated  its  catechism  for  me,  and  it  is  the  purest 
Christianism. 

There  is  the  pantheistic  dream  of  Brahma  and  that 
of  Buddha,  the  reformer,  who  recognises  as  God  "  the 
great  All  in  All."  This  is  a  dream  which  is  clouded 
over  and  disfigured  by  endless  superstitions.  Its  be- 
wildering profoundness  conceals,  perhaps,  the  secret 
of  our  future. 


203          THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

There  have  been  the  fantastical,  exaggerated  dreams 
of  the  Phoenicians  and  of  the  Assyrians.  Then  there 
was  the  great  philosophical  dream  of  the  Greeks,  which 
the  Romans  were  to  make  their  own,  amplifying  it  and 
taking  away  from  it  its  characteristic  mark.  This  was 
the  fine  dream,  the  immortal  light  from  which  still 
shines  for  us,  whilst  its  waves  were  destined  to  mingle 
with  those  of  Christianism. 

There  was  the  monotheistic  dream  of  Moses,  inspired 
by  Egyptian  mythology,  which  contained  the  germ  of  a 
strange  and  foreign  flower,  of  the  Christianism  that  we 
are  still  living  at  present. 

There  was  the  dream  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  whose 
mystic  Word,  of  elevated  spirituality  and  of  pure  moral- 
ity, embodied  itself  on  the  banks  of  the  Tiber,  and  gave 
to  the  Western  world  an  all  powerful  religion  and 
Church. 

Then  finally,  there  was  the  dream  of  Mahomet,  in- 
spired by  Judaism  and  Christianism.  This  was  both 
gentle  and  humane  at  its  origin,  but  it  developed  into 
the  dream  of  an  ambitious  and  cruel  conqueror. 

And  in  all  these  dreams,  which  are  the  chief  branches 
of  that  unique  tree,  Religion,  there  has  been  the  incar- 
nation of  divinity.  Man  has  always  felt  "  God  with 
him."  This  conception  existed  in  the  mind  of  the  an- 
cestor with  the  low,  receding  forehead,  and  it  exists  in 
the  mind  of  the  Christian  with  his  high,  straight  fore- 
head. This  gives  matter  for  meditation  to  the  thinker. 

When  I  felt  the  direction  in  which  the  current  wns 
urging  on  my  barque,  I  began  to  read  Mythology,  the 
Bible  and  the  New  Testament  once  more.  I  read  them 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  203 

all  straight  through,  as  they  ought  to  be  read,  in  order 
to  be  understood.  They  gave  me  the  impression  of  a 
rich  embroidery  woven  in  green,  purple  and  silver. 
Nature  will  add  gold  to  it  later  on.  What  I  read  made 
all  the  phases  of  the  metaphysical  dream  of  humanity 
pass  before  my  objective  mind.  It  seemed  to  me  that 
I  saw  the  soul  of  the  Terrestrian  crawling  for  a  long 
time  on  the  ground,  then  getting  up  and  falling  again, 
rising  once  more  and  arriving  at  Monotheism,  which  is 
a  synthesis,  then  practising,  with  Christianism,  soaring 
and  hovering,  the  only  kind  of  flight  which  can  give  a 
perfect  balance.  It  is  far  from  having  attained  this 
balance  as  yet.  These  successive  efforts  touched  me 
very  deeply  and,  when  I  realised  that  all  mythologies, 
with  their  fables,  all  religions,  with  their  dogmas,  and 
all  sects,  with  %  their  beliefs,  had  come  from  certain 
cerebral  cellules  of  our  motor,  worked  on  by  divine 
force,  my  amazement  was  boundless.  I  had  commenced 
this  reading  without  any  enthusiasm,  as  I  still  remem- 
bered that  boredom  and  disgust  which  lessons  that  are 
not  understood  always  give  us  in  our  childhood  and 
youth.  My  mind  had,  no  doubt,  been  prepared  now  to 
receive  these  lessons,  as  before  long  I  was  captivated 
by  them.  I  felt  that  I  was  in  the  very  midst  of  the  liv- 
ing work  of  the  Wonderful  Romance.  I  went  on  from 
admiration  to  admiration,  from  discovery  to  discovery. 
It  seemed  as  though  I  were  drinking  a  generous  wine, 
a  famous  Burgundy,  and  all  other  books  seemed  to  me 
as  tasteless  as  water. 

As  a  school-girl  I  had  never  had  the  Catechism  prize, 
but  always  the  one  for  Mythology.     My  mother  told 


204    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

me  the  legends  of  Christianisra  and  my  father  those 
of  Paganism,  and  the  respective  wonders  in  each  created 
the  most  disconcerting  confusion  in  my  brain.  I  knew 
the  names  of  all  the  personages  of  Olympus.  Those 
gods  who  came  down  to  earth,  in  fiery  chariots,  and  who 
took,  at  will,  any  form  they  chose,  fascinated  me  and 
seemed  to  me  like  the  true  gods.  More  than  once,  I 
have  put  a  few  coppers  into  the  hand  of  some  old  beg- 
gar woman,  thinking  that  she  might,  perhaps,  be  a 
goddess  incognito. 

I  had  a  special  affection  for  Zeus,  because  he  had 
been  persecuted  when  he  was  a  little  child.  I  could  see 
him  being  carried  off  by  his  mother  to  an  isle  of  flowers, 
and  being  nourished  by  a  white  goat  with  golden  horns. 
I  envied  him  his  nurse  and  still  more  the  fine  warriors 
who  guarded  his  cradle,  clanging  their  shields  to  pre- 
vent his  cries  reaching  the  ears  of  old  Chronos  who 
wanted  to  kill  him.  The  child  Zeus,  threatened  by 
Chronos,  and  the  child  Jesus,  threatened  by  Herod,  were 
mixed  up  in  my  imagination,  and  my  worship  went  from 
one  to  the  other,  without  the  least  scruple. 

It  is  thanks  to  these  indelible  childish  impressions, 
which  all  "  concur  "  in  our  destiny,  that  I  have  always 
had  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  with  me.  I  have  often 
read  them  through  again  at  intervals  of  a  few  years. 
As  my  understanding  increased,  I  discovered  fresh  beau- 
ties, which  were  so  many  revelations,  in  them.  When- 
ever I  opened  them  again,  they  always  took  possession 
of  me  in  a  curious  way,  making  me  lay  aside  any  other 
book.  This  time,  the  last,  undoubtedly,  that  I  shall 
ever  read  them,  I  have  thoroughly  understood  that  won- 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  205 

derful  Bible  of  the  Greeks,  and  it  seems  to  me  to  be 
one  of  the  great  things  of  this  world.  I  went  so  far 
as  to  conceive  that  I  was  living  again  the  vision  of  a 
brain  dead  three  thousand  years  ago,  the  brain  which 
had  perhaps  possessed  the  greatest  number  of  ideal- 
weaving  cellules.  What  a  relish  this  gave  to  my  read- 
ing! The  novelist  who  feels  the  need  of  a  lesson  on 
humanity  should  go  back  to  this  immortal  book,  in 
which  Homer  puts  on  the  scene,  with  the  naturalness 
of  a  realist,  all  the  gods  and  all  the  goddesses  of  Olym- 
pus, all  the  princes  and  all  the  peoples  of  Greece.  The 
poet  is  so  thoroughly  conscious  of  the  difficulty  of  his 
task  and  of  his  human  ignorance,  that,  in  a  touching 
prayer,  he  asks  the  Muses  and  the  goddesses  for  in- 
spiration. 

Whatever  learned  men  may  tell  us,  Homer,  who  had 
been  adopted  by  a  schoolmaster,  must  have  been  able  to 
write.  When  Nature  closed  his  eyes,  in  order  to  ren- 
der his  inner  vision  more  intense,  he  must  have  dictated 
his  songs  to  some  scribe,  and  so  transmitted  the  beau- 
tiful films  which  his  recollections  and  his  imagination 
created  behind  his  forehead.  He  was  not  only  a  poet, 
but  a  great  artist,  a  painter,  a  sculptor,  and  an  admira- 
ble colourist.  He  clothes  the  gods  and  goddesses  with 
light.  His  favourite  heroes  are  tall,  broad-shouldered 
men  with  beautiful  bodies,  and,  above  all,  with  long, 
fair  hair  and,  when  he  speaks  of  some  of  his  dead,  he 
tells  us  of  their  dazzlingly  white  breasts.  He  clothes 
his  warriors  in  superb  tunics  and  puts  helmets,  with 
plumes  and  tufts  of  feathers,  on  their  heads.  He  gives 
them  shields  of  precious  metal,  shoulder  belts  richly 


206    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

embroidered  and  fastened  with  silver  hooks,  and  man- 
tles of  purple  tints.  Compare  all  that  with  the  uni- 
forms of  our  modern  warriors ;  their  scanty  plumes  look 
as  though  they  had  been  intended  for  children.  The 
chiefs  of  the  Trojans  and  of  the  Greeks  had  superb 
war-chariots  and  swift  horses  "  with  golden  manes." 
Their  couches  are  made  with  "  soft  skins,  with  cover- 
ings of  brilliant  colours  and  with  the  finest  linen." 
Who  would  have  thought  of  them  having  sheets?  Two 
chiefs,  after  plunging  in  the  sea,  get  into  "  baths  of 
polished  brass,  in  order  to  refresh  themselves."  We  are 
struck  with  admiration  on  reading  the  description  of 
Juno's  chariot  and  of  Vulcan's  armour.  The  sugges- 
tion of  this  genius  is  such  that  one  hears  "  the  bellow- 
ing doors  of  Olympus  "  open,  to  make  way  for  the 
celestial  messenger,  Mercury,  "  shod  with  his  beautiful 
winged  heels,"  and  for  Minerva,  bearing  "  the  un- 
changeable ^Egis  from  which  float  a  hundred  golden 
fringes  woven  artistically,  each  one  of  which  is  worth  a 
hecatomb."  One  has,  to  an  incomparable  degree,  the  im- 
pression of  invisible,  but  living,  forces  directing  the  su- 
perb hand  to  hand  combats  of  the  Greeks  and  Trojans. 
One  hears  with  sorrow,  "  the  Earth  resound  for  a  long 
time  under  the  armour  of  the  fallen  foe."  And  I,  the 
most  vegetarian  of  carnivorous  beings,  I  felt,  to  my 
horror,  my  nostrils  dilating  with  the  odour  of  the 
Homeric  feasts,  at  which  "  the  succulent  flesh,  sprinkled 
with  the  wine  of  libations,  roasted  on  a  spit  of  five  rows, 
in  front  of  the  fire  made  of  leafless  branches." 

There  is  an  astonishing  knowledge  of  humanity  and 
of  life  running  through  the  Iliad.     In  no  other  poem 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  207 

is  there  as  much  blood  shed  and  in  no  other  poem  are 
there  so  many  tears  wept.  It  must  be  that  tears  were 
not  considered  a  sign  of  weakness.  In  the  Odyssey, 
there  is  weeping  in  every  page!  Homer  was  as  fond 
of  moral  beauty  as  of  physical  beauty,  and  he  adorns 
his  heroes  with  it  lavishly.  He  sings  of  friendship  more 
than  he  does  of  love  and  he  is  divinely  chaste.  Helen's 
adventure  is  treated  in  an  extraordinarily  refined  way. 
He  represents  her  as  "  covered  with  veils  of  dazzling 
whiteness."  He  gives  her  a  "  robe  as  odoriferous  as 
nectar."  Paris  is  not  her  lover,  but  her  husband.  She 
has  her  nuptial  room  in  the  palace  of  Priam,  whom  she 
calls  "  dear  father."  The  poet  makes  of  Paris,  "  with 
the  delicate  neck,"  a  weak  somewhat  uncertain  being. 
"He  hides,  even  among  the  Trojans,"  in  order  "to 
escape  Fate."  Menelaus,  "  with  the  strong  loins,"  is 
always  valorous  like  a  true  hero.  It  is  he  who  carries 
off  the  body  of  Patroclus  from  the  Trojans.  Helen 
has  all  the  remorse  of  the  good  woman.  We  feel  this 
when  she  says :  "  Would  to  Heaven  that  I  had  chosen 
the  most  cruel  death,  when  I  left  my  nuptial  bed,  my 
brothers,  my  only  daughter  and  all  the  kind  friends  of 
my  youth."  Later  on,  when  Paris  returns  to  her  con- 
quered by  Menelaus,  her  wounded  vanity  and  her  re- 
grets inspire  her  with  the  most  scathing  reproaches: 
"  You  have  come  out  of  the  combat  like  this ! "  she  ex- 
claims, "  why  did  you  not  rather  perish  there,  killed  by 
the  hand  of  the  valiant  warrior  with  whom  my  destiny 
was  united ! "  She  was  reconquered  by  her  first  hus- 
band long  before  the  fall  of  Troy. 

On  reading  over  again  this  exquisite   romance,  the 


208          THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

psychology  of  which  is  so  true,  I  remembered  going  to 
a  performance  of  La  Belle  Hclene  at  one  of  our  Parisian 
theatres,  some  years  ago.  I  overheard  an  Englishman, 
of  about  forty  years  of  age,  say  to  his  friend :  "  Only 
the  French  would  be  capable  of  writing  that  parody. 
It  is  a  profanation ! "  When  he  saw  Mcnelaus  unfold 
his  handkerchief,  marked  as  it  was  with  the  armorial 
bearings  of  deceived  husbands,  I  saw  his  neck  get  very 
red  and  I  heard  him  say  to  his  friend :  "  I  cannot  stand 
this  nasty  thing  any  longer.  I  am  going  —  He  got 
up  at  once  and  boldly  left  the  theatre.  I  pitied  him 
for  not  being  able  to  laugh  at  the  delightful  nonsense, 
but  I  ought  to  have  pitied  myself ! 

In  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey,  Homer  has  transmitted 
the  Hellenic  dream  to  us,  a  dream  of  the  "  Great  Initi- 
ated Ones,"  full  of  clever  symbols,  of  wonderful  reve- 
lations, the  outcome  of  which  has  been  a  whole  meta- 
physical world.  After  studying  it  more  closely,  I  have 
discovered,  to  my  great  stupefaction,  that  it  is  not,  and 
never  was,  polytheistical. 

Zeus  was  seated  on  one  of  the  highest  summits  of 
Olympus.  He  was  a  god,  but  he  was  not  God,  for 
above  him  was  Destiny,  against  whose  trill  he  could  do 
nothing  and  to  ichose  laics  he  was  submitted.  Greek 
thought  then  had  had  a  glimpse  of  a  supreme  God  — 
the  God  that  it  does  not  describe.  Like  us,  it  had  felt 
the  attractive  force  of  this  God  through  numberless 
hierarchies,  and,  like  us,  it  was  monothcistical.  Its  con- 
ception of  Zeus  =  Jupiter,  of  Apollo,  Athene  =  Mi- 
nerva, of  Venus  =  Gcnctrix,  suffices  for  revealing  to 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE          209 

us  the  long  distance  which  the  human  mind  has  already 
travelled. 

Zeus  is  the  generator  of  the  physical  and  moral 
forces,  of  all  that  is  good  and  of  all  that  is  evil.  The 
progress  of  humanity  is  the  work  of  Zeus.  He  comes 
down  incognito  among  men,  in  order  to  civilise  them,  to 
teach  them  kindness,  charity,  the  laws  of  hospitality. 
He  allows  even  beggars  to  ask  all  this  in  his  name,  and 
it  is  never  refused  to  them  then.  He  delegates  a  share 
of  his  authority  to  kings,  thus  establishing  the  divine 
right.  He  then  institutes  faith  in  the  given  word, 
reveals  the  duties  of  justice,  and  causes  remorse  to  be 
born  in  the  conscience.  Is  not  all  this  the  role  of  our 
Providence? 

Apollo,  too,  is  an  admirable  creation.  He  is  the 
son  of  Jupiter  and  he  is  the  Light,  and,  because  he  is 
the  Light,  he  can  give  Life  and  Death.  Because  he  is 
the  Light,  he  can  purify  and  save  souls.  Because  he 
is  the  Light,  he  creates  poets,  musicians  and  artists. 
Because  he  is  the  Light,  he  is  sovereign  beauty,  vigour 
and  grace!  Is  there  not  an  astounding  scientific  reve- 
lation in  this  ideal? 

Athene  =  Minerva,  the  virgin  goddess  whom  Phidias 
carved  in  gold,  in  ivory  and  in  brass,  who  inspired  the 
beauty  of  the  Parthenon,  is  the  daughter  of  Jupiter, 
one  of  his  emanations.  She  springs  from  his  brain, 
like  a  flash  of  lightning,  provided  with  the  lance  for 
attack  and  the  shield  for  defence.  And  this  flash  is 
Thought,  Intelligence  and  Wisdom.  She  is  armed  for 
war  and  for  peace.  In  war,  she  fights  like  an  ardent 


210  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

Amazon ;  whilst  in  peace  she  is  once  more  the  civilising 
woman,  she  protects  and  develops  industry,  teaches  the 
artisans  secrets  and  guides  the  shuttle  of  the  weaver. 
As  she  is  Wisdom,  she  is  always  young,  strong  and 
serene ;  and  as  she  is  Wisdom,  she  carries  victory  in  her 
hand.  She  appears  to  be  more  interested  in  human 
beings  than  any  other  goddess  was.  Homer  shows  her 
"  pulling  the  long  hair  of  Achilles,"  to  remind  him  to 
be  prudent  when  quarrelling  with  Agamemnon.  In 
the  Odyssey,  she  performs  a  very  pretty  miracle.  "  She 
keeps  the  sun  back  in  the  waves  of  the  sea  for  the  sake 
of  Ulysses  and  Penelope,  as  she  wants  to  prolong  their 
night  of  love."  Does  not  this  idea  reveal  an  elevated 
philosophy  ? 

And  that  adorable  Venus  =  Genetrix  —  the  mother ! 
In  marble  and  with  beautiful  lines,  the  creator  of  the 
Venus  of  Milo  has  shown  her  in  all  her  nobility.  She 
has  ample  loins  and  divinely  harmonious  proportions, 
and  with  her  the  sanctuary  of  maternity  is  veiled.  Her 
proud,  tender  face  was  reflected,  no  doubt,  in  the  shield 
that  protected  her.  As  she  is  the  mother,  she  is  also 
Venus  ~  Victrix,  victorious  Venus.  She  personifies  the 
triumph  of  love.  Is  not  that  Truth  symbolised? 

The  great  mass  of  people  could  not  mount  all  at 
once  straight  to  the  Infinite  and,  therefore,  needed 
divinities  who  were  not  so  far  away  from  them.  The 
poet,  with  his  fertile  imagination,  wove  legends  around 
his  gods,  he  invented  genealogies  for  them  and  gave 
them  families.  Their  love  affairs  and  their  wonderful 
adventures  would  appear  grotesque,  if  they  were  not 
so  many  allegories.  He  gave  them  a  body  and  made 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

them  seem  living  and  familiar.  He  could  not  explain 
the  sudden  leaps  of  good  and  bad  fortune  in  his  own 
destiny  and  so  he  attributes  these  to  the  caprices  of  the 
Higher  Powers,  and  endeavours  to  render  these  Higher 
Powers  favourable  by  means  of  sacrifices.  When  man 
cannot  get  to  the  supreme  God,  he  makes  the  supreme 
God  come  down  to  him.  This  phenomenon  has  been 
reproduced  in  all  religions,  in  Christianism  even.  In 
this  childish,  and  at  the  same  time  grandiose,  Western 
dream,  men  lived  the  struggle  of  the  gods,  and  the  gods 
lived  the  struggle  of  men;  divinity  and  humanity  were 
mingled  together  like  the  water  and  the  wine  in  the 
chalice  of  the  Catholic  priest.  And  thanks  to  this, 
waves  and  waves  of  adoration,  of  faith  and  of  hope 
have  been  created.  It  has  raised  up  temples  with  pure 
lines,  the  very  fragments  of  which  are  as  precious  as 
so  many  parchments  of  nobility.  It  has  infused  into 
a  whole  nation  a  vigour  and  a  force  which  gave  it  the 
finest  victories.  It  produced,  in  this  way,  that  wis- 
dom which  we  call  philosophy.  It  created  schools  for 
the  culture  of  the  soul,  such  as  that  of  the  Stoics,  in 
which  men  trained  themselves  to  virtue,  austerity  and 
contempt  of  pain  and  suffering.  In  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury, it  was  still  so  living  that  Dante,  for  his  songs, 
invokes  "  good  Apollo,  the  gods,  the  goddesses  and  the 
Muses,"  just  as  Homer  had  done  more  than  two  thou- 
sand years  before.  This  dream  has  produced  accumu- 
lators of  beauty,  harmony,  art  and  thought  which  still 
supply  us  with  superior  energies.  There  are  doctors 
who  prescribe  for  certain  of  their  neurasthenic  pa- 
tients a  reading  of  Epictetus  and  of  Marcus  Aurelius, 


212  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

as  a  spiritual  remedy.  The  Hellenic  dream  did  still 
more  than  this,  for  it  prepared  the  way  for  Christian- 
ism,  its  own  future  enemy.  This  is  a  striking  revela- 
tion of  that  work  of  Providence  which  creates  in  me 
perpetual  admiration. 

When  one  leaves  Mythology  and  turns  to  the  Bible, 
one  has,  like  Dante  at  the  beginning  of  his  journey,  the 
impression  of  **  a  dark,  thickly  wooded,  rough  forest 
which  gives  one  constant  terror,"  "  la  sclva  oscura  sel- 
vaggia  aspra  e  forte  che  nel  pensier  rinuova."  I  knew 
the  Bible,  that  is,  the  Old  Testament,  like  most  people 
of  Latin  race,  chiefly  by  its  more  celebrated  verses.  I 
read  it  for  the  first  time  when  I  was  in  England  —  and 
I  soon  fell  under  its  Oriental  charm.  I  felt  its  psy- 
chical power  to  such  a  degree  as  to  be  susceptible  to 
the  special  fluid  which  seems  to  emanate  from  its  pages 
in  touching  them.  Notwithstanding  this,  I  did  not 
understand  its  philosophy  or  its  real  force.  Its  con- 
ception of  the  Eternal  God  seemed  to  me  strangely 
childish  and  shocked,  more  than  it  edified,  me.  At 
present,  thanks  to  my  objective  vision  and  to  my  thor- 
oughly determinist  views,  the  Judaic  dream  appears  to 
me  immense  and  as  rigid  as  a  cast.  It  was  a  necessary 
dream.  Its  effects  and  its  consequences  prove  this 
amply.  It  produced  a  grand  symphony  and  for  a 
long  time  we  shall  go  on  living  out  the  vibrations  of 
this. 

Moses  had  been  taught  in  Egypt  and  it  was  from 
there  that  he  had  his  belief  in  one  God  only;  it  was 
from  there  that  he  had  the  symbolical  legend  of  the 
fall  of  man  and  all  the  persons  of  the  drama  of  Eden. 


He  left  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  alone  and  also  that 
of  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  which  Christianism  was 
to  find  again  later  on.  In  spite  of  the  burning  bush, 
the  thunder  and  the  lightning  of  Sinai,  the  religious 
and  social  laws  of  the  Decalogue  contained  in  the  five 
books  of  Moses,  in  that  of  Joshua  and  even  in  that  of 
Judges,  Jehovah  does  not  appear  as  the  God  of  the 
Universe.  He  is  the  God  of  Israel,  who,  so  that  the 
Hebrews  should  not  leave  Egypt  with  empty  hands, 
said :  "  Every  woman  shall  borrow  of  her  neighbour 
and  of  her  that  sojourneth  in  her  house,  jewels  of  silver 
and  jewels  of  gold,  and  raiment:  and  ye  shall  put  them 
upon  your  sons,  and  upon  your  daughters ;  and  ye  shall 
spoil  the  Egyptians." 

He  was  the  God  of  a  shepherd  people.  He  knew  the 
number  of  their  cattle,  he  thought  of  their  flocks.  He 
was  the  God  of  a  people  of  tribes.  He  fights  first  with 
one  and  then  with  another,  just  as  the  gods  of  Olympus 
fought  now  with  the  Greeks  and  now  with  the  Trojans. 
He  presides  over  the  distribution  of  the  plunder  of  war, 
always  reserving  the  largest  share  for  the  family  of 
Aaron,  the  brother  of  Moses.  He  is  the  God  who 
caused  the  sun  to  "  stand  still  in  the  midst  of  heaven 
upon  Gibeon  and  the  moon  in  the  valley  of  Ajalon,"  in 
order  to  permit  Joshua  to  avenge  himself  upon  his  ene- 
mies. He  is  the  God  who,  at  the  taking  of  Jericho, 
ordered  that  all  should  be  burnt  except  the  silver  and 
gold  and  the  vessels  of  brass  and  iron,  which  were  to 
be  reserved  for  the  treasury  of  the  Eternal,  and  this 
meant  for  the  Levites.  He  is  above  all  the  God  of  the 
law  of  retaliation,  for  He  said :  "  An  eye  for  an  eye, 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

a  tooth  for  a  tooth,  wound  for  wound,  stripe  for 
stripe." 

As  the  nation  is  gradually  formed,  so  the  conception 
of  Jehovah  becomes  more  and  more  elevated.  He  is 
the  "  All-Powerful,  the  King  of  Kings."  He  is  no 
longer  the  God  of  one  people,  but  the  God  of  all  hu- 
manity, and  humanity,  personified  by  Job,  addresses 
him  direct,  exposes  his  ills  to  him,  the  injustice  of  things 
and  asks  his  sorrowful  questions.  He  asks  in  anger: 
"  I  have  sinned ;  what  shall  I  do  unto  thee,  O  thou  pre- 
server of  men?  Why  dost  thou  not  pardon  my  trans- 
gression and  take  away  mine  iniquity?"  Exasperated 
by  his  misery,  he  curses  the  day  he  was  born  and  goes 
so  far  as  to  say:  "  My  soul  is  iceary  of  my  life." 
People  tell  him  of  the  almightiness  of  God,  of  the  im- 
possibility of  fathoming  His  plans.  They  promise  him 
that  he  will  forget  his  sufferings,  but  he  disdains  these 
futile  consolations  and  declares  that  God  must  not  be 
defended  by  lies.  He  seems  to  be  awaiting  a  promise 
and  even  asking  for  it,  the  promise  of  the  Resurrection, 
of  immortality,  but  the  promise  does  not  come,  it  was 
not  to  come  then,  and  the  great  man,  in  his  affliction, 
cries  out  in  his  bitterness :  "  So  man  lieth  down  and 
riseth  not:  till  the  heavens  be  no  more,  they  shall  not 
awake,  nor  be  raised  out  of  their  sleep."  I  know  noth- 
ing more  tragic  than  the  silence  with  which  this  re- 
proach is  received.  The  book  of  Job  is  of  incomparable 
beauty.  It  seems  as  though  all  the  past,  present  and 
future  waves  of  human  suffering  had  passed  through 
the  soul  of  the  sacred  poet. 

In  the  Psalms,  the  inspiration  is  warmer  and  more 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  215 

consoling.  Jehovah  appears  there  as  the  God  of  the 
Universe,  of  Nature,  the  God  "  clothed  in  light," 
who  created  the  face  of  the  earth  and  who  renews  it. 
Humanity  still  complains,  but  it  has  approached  nearer 
to  its  Creator,  it  knows  Him  better  and,  with  David, 
words  of  love,  faith  and  hope  come  from  its  heart,  as 
in  that  adorable  canticle :  "  The  Lord  is  my  Shep- 
herd, I  shall  not  want." 

With  Solomon  and  in  the  Books  of  Ecclesiastes  and 
the  Prophets,  the  Judaic  dream  reaches  its  highest 
point.  It  takes  on  a  philosophical  breadth  which  could 
not  have  been  foreseen  in  the  early  days.  Jehovah  now 
appears  as  the  God  of  supreme  Wisdom.  He  instructs 
man  and  he  sends  magnificent  and  symbolical  visions  to 
His  initiated  ones,  and  puts  into  their  mouths  words 
of  great  force.  His  prophets  announce  to  men  more 
kindness,  justice,  love  and  charity.  The  psychical  cur- 
rents bring  to  them  the  picture  of  Him  who  is  to  come, 
the  films  of  the  drama  of  the  Passion  and,  strangely 
enough,  they  seem  to  suffer  with  Christ,  in  their  soul 
and  in  their  flesh.  Science  will  explain  this  fine  mys- 
tery to  us  some  day,  and  perhaps  very  soon.  In  the 
poem  of  the  Old  Testament,  we  can  follow  the  upward 
movement  of  the  human  mind  through  all  the  obscurity 
of  its  childhood,  and  this  upward  movement  is  infinitely 
touching  and  wonderful.  The  poets  who  composed  it 
were  thoroughly  and  divinely  inspired.  They  gave  men 
the  immense  consolation  of  being  able  to  complain  of 
God  —  to  God  Himself  —  and  of  seeking  in  His  replies 
the  hope  which  they  needed.  It  is  this  which  makes  the 
Bible  the  book  of  militant  humanity;  and  this  is  the 


216    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

secret  of  its  occult  and  beneficent  power.  Then,  too, 
as  usual,  the  romantic  dream  mingles  with  the  spiritual 
dream.  The  first  part  of  the  Bible  is  strewn  with 
legends,  with  stories,  animated  by  heroes  and  heroines. 
The  Song  of  Songs  flings  into  it  words  which  are  like 
the  sparkle  of  diamonds  and  rubies.  One  must  be  en- 
dowed with  the  imagination  peculiar  to  the  theologian 
if  one  is  to  see  in  this  the  symbol  of  Christ's  love  for  the 
Church.  In  the  treasure-trove  of  Oriental  poetry, 
there  are  numbers  of  Songs  of  Songs,  and  they  are 
sung  on  the  thresholds  of  the  tents,  on  the  outskirt  of 
the  desert.  These  waves  of  metaphysical  beauty,  which 
run  through  the  sanguinary  and  voluptuous  history  of 
the  Israelites,  purify  it  like  an  electric  current  and 
tower  above  it  so  much  that  they  make  us  forget  its 
crimes. 

With  curious  pleasure  I  saw  the  green  thread  of 
Mythology  appear  again  in  the  purple  of  the  Old 
Testament.  I  saw  a  number  of  its  allegorical  figures, 
such,  for  instance,  as  the  serpent,  from  which,  according 
to  Hindu  symbolism,  the  terrestrial  globe  springs.  I 
saw  the  thunder  and  lightning  of  Zeus,  the  Prince 
Satan  who  comes  from  Persia  and  whom  we  see  con- 
versing familiarly  with  Jehovah.  Then  there  were  the 
Titans,  and  the  passage  which  brings  them  on  to  the 
scene  caused  me  a  veritable  thrill.  In  the  sixth  chap- 
ter of  Genesis,  we  read :  "  And  it  came  to  pass  when 
men  began  to  multiply  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  and 
daughters  were  born  unto  them,  that  the  sons  of  God 
saw  the  daughters  of  men  that  they  were  fair  and  they 
took  them  wives  of  all  which  they  chose."  Further  on : 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE     217 

"  There  were  giants  in  the  earth  in  those  days :  and  also 
after  that,  when  the  sons  of  God  came  in  unto  the 
daughters  of  men,  and  they  bare  children  to  them,  the 
same  became  mighty  men  which  were  of  old,  men  of  re- 
nown." Was  it  not  from  this  that  Christ  was  called 
Son  of  God?  What  an  awe-inspiring  profoundness  that 
gives  to  our  history ! 

Modernists  may  dip  into  the  philosophy  of  the  Old 
Testament  and  they  will  find  plenty  of  material  for 
them.  They  will  find  thoughts  such  as  this :  "  Who 
is  this  that  darkeneth  counsel  by  words  without  knowl- 
edge ?  "  The  following  is  a  promise  which  will  gladden 
the  hearts  of  the  pacificators,  it  ought  to  be  inscribed  on 
the  pediment  of  the  Palace  of  The  Hague :  "  And  they 
shall  beat  their  swords  into  ploughshares  and  their 
spears  into  pruning-hooks :  nation  shall  not  lift  up 
sword  against  nation,  neither  shall  they  learn  war  any 
more." 

And  what  magnificent  expressions  one  finds  too ! 
Job  says :  "  All  the  while  the  spirit  of  God  is  in  my 
nostrils."  I  found  again,  in  the  Old  Testament,  a 
quantity  of  those  sayings  which  came  from  lips  that 
living  coals  had  touched,  sayings  which  are  imprinted 
on  the  human  soul  and  that  generations  have  trans- 
mitted to  each  other,  phrases  that  I  learnt  from  my 
mother  and  that  I  repeat  in  my  turn:  "  For  He 
maketh  sore  and  bindeth  up."  "  He  that  hath  pity 
upon  the  poor  lendeth  to  the  Lord."  And  on  realising 
that,  among  so  many  helpful  words,  there  is  no  plain 
and  clear  promise  which  gives  us  the  hope  of  immor- 
tality, one  is  disconcerted  and  one  truly  feels  "  in  a 


218    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

dark,  rough,  wild  forest."  Did  Moses  fear  that  such  a 
belief  might  intoxicate  the  voluptuous  imagination  of 
the  Hebrews  and  inspire  them  to  create  another  Olym- 
pus? That  is  quite  possible.  It  is  God  who  chooses 
the  spiritual  nourishment  of  mankind.  In  Judaism, 
punishments  and  rewards  are  restricted  to  temporal 
life.  God  closed  the  doors  of  the  terrestrial  Paradise 
to  Adam  and  Eve,  but  He  did  not  close  the  doors  of  the 
celestial  Paradise,  and  in  Genesis  there  is  not,  and  could 
not  be,  any  question  of  the  Redemption,  as  that  would 
have  implied  a  future  life.  It  is  by  spiritualising  the 
Messiah  that  the  Apostles  and  the  theologians  have 
linked  the  New  Testament  to  the  Old  Testament.  In 
the  romantic  dream,  this  would  be  considered  a  happy 
thought ;  in  the  metaphysical  dream,  it  is  called  a  reve- 
lation. Is  this  trickery?  No,  it  simply  means  that  the 
human  mind  was  growing,  that  is  all.  The  belief  in  the 
Redemption  was  to  be  the  corner-stone  of  the  Christian 
edifice,  the  principal  agent  of  the  evolution  which  was 
to  blend  the  Oriental  soul  with  the  Occidental  soul. 

On  reading  the  last  lines  of  the  Biblical  poem,  one 
sees  "  the  Sun  of  righteousness  arise  with  healing  in 
his  wings,"  and  one  sees,  as  did  the  Florentine  poet : 
"  the  summit  of  the  dark  valley  already  clothed  with 
the  rays  of  the  planet  which  guides  us  faithfully  along 
every  path."  These  rays  were  those  of  the  Christian- 
ism  which  had  sprung  up. 


CHAPTER  X 

CHRISTIANISM  !  Its  ethics  already  existed  with  the 
Egyptians.  The  examination  which  the  Soul  that  ap- 
peared before  Osiris  had  to  undergo  is  a  proof  of  this. 
In  order  to  be  absolved  and  admitted  to  see  the  Divine 
Majesty  face  to  face,  it  had  to  prove  that  it  had  "  re- 
spected the  gods,  showed  equity  to  all  free  men,  kind- 
ness to  slaves  and  charity  to  the  poor  and  weak.  If  it 
could  not  prove  this,  it  was  condemned,  submitted  to 
tortures  and  mercifully  allowed  to  be  lost  in  the  Neant." 
When  Persia,  thanks  to  Zoroaster,  held  the  record 
for  wisdom,  it  celebrated  the  fete  of  equality  every 
year.  The  King  mingled  with  the  crowd  and  talked 
with  the  more  useful  of  his  subjects.  Agriculturists 
and  artisans  sat  at  his  table  and  at  that  of  his  satraps. 
He  would  say  to  them :  "  Thanks  to  your  labour,  we 
have  our  food  and,  thanks  to  us,  you  have  tranquillity 
and  ease.  We  are  necessary  to  each  other ;  let  us,  there- 
fore, live  at  peace  like  brothers."  This  did  not  pre- 
vent the  big  brothers  from  oppressing  the  little  broth- 
ers, but  the  ideal  was  there.  It  has,  perhaps,  always 
existed  in  the  soul  of  this  earth.  From  time  to  time,  it 
has  been  incarnated  in  an  individual  who  has  exterior- 
ised it  in  more  or  less  eloquent  words.  It  has  then  been 
stifled  again  by  hostile  forces ;  by  cupidity,  egoism,  or 
ambition,  and  men  continued  and  still  continue  to  kill 
each  other,  but  each  one  of  these  incarnations  has  given 

us  more  warmth  and  more  light.     On  some  far-off  day, 

219 


220          THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

no  doubt,  the  ideal  will  triumph,  and  its  triumph  will 
mean  fraternity,  the  divine  fraternity  that  we  do  not 
yet  know. 

This  was  the  dream  of  Christ,  but  how  much  greater 
still!  There  is  a  spirituality  mingled  with  that,  a 
spirituality  drawn  from  profound  sources  which  was  to 
open  the  human  soul  a  little  more.  This  dream  is  con- 
tained, in  its  entirety,  in  the  four  Gospels.  When, 
after  the  waves  of  ardent,  tumultuous,  closely  con- 
densed thoughts  of  the  Old  Testament,  we  come  to  those 
of  the  New  Testament,  we  have  the  impression  of  sailing 
along  on  a  peaceful  stream  and  it  seems  good  to  us,  it 
seems  infinitely  better. 

For  the  first  time,  I  have  read  the  Christian  poem 
through.  Its  Oriental  charm  and  its  mysticism  have 
penetrated  me  through  and  through.  For  the  first 
time  I  have  seen  Christ. 

Christ!  We  have  no  physical  picture  of  him,  but 
we  have  given  him  beautiful,  regular  features ;  blue  eyes, 
rather  long,  fair  hair,  parted  over  his  forehead  and 
thrown  back  behind  his  ears.  His  beard,  too,  is  fair 
and  he  is  tall.  He  has  a  grave,  austere  expression, 
softened  by  the  kindness  of  his  lips.  We  have  clothed 
him  in  a  seamless  robe  and,  thanks  to  suggestion,  it  is 
like  this  that  he  is  engraved  in  millions  of  human  brains. 
He  was  the  God  who  lived  among  us.  He  had  to  come, 
in  order  to  put  into  activity  fresh  psychical  forces,  in 
order  to  bring  us  nearer  to  the  Beyond.  He  put  into 
the  soul  of  the  Earth  fresh  forces,  consolations  and 
moral  life-buoys.  He  inspired  the  folly  of  the  cross, 
exalted  love,  heroic  sacrifices.  In  his  name,  men  have 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  221 

loved  and  hated,  saved  and  killed,  pardoned  and  perse- 
cuted, healed  and  tortured.  The  nineteen-hundred- 
years-old  Christ  is  always  young.  His  divine  mag- 
netism acts  still.  He  is  one  of  those  who  can  never 
perish.  I  knew  all  that  and  yet  I  had  never  been  able 
to  share  the  love  and  adoration  which  he  has  always 
aroused.  There  was  even  within  me  a  latent  hostility 
against  him,  which  I  would  not  have  owned  even  to  my 
own  shadow,  and  of  which  I  was  somewhat  ashamed. 
The  reason  of  this  was  not  entirely  my  own  fault.  The 
figure  of  Christ  is  not  presented  to  us  fairly.  It  is  cut 
into  pieces  for  us,  and  not  one  of  these  pieces  gives  us 
his  real  personality.  His  doctrine  is  presented  to  us  in 
verses  and  in  texts.  It  is  rendered  obscure,  thanks  to 
ignorance,  a  lack  of  comprehension  and  the  commen- 
taries of  the  Epistles.  We  neither  feel  his  humanity 
nor  his  divinity.  He  seems  to  hover  between  heaven 
and  earth.  In  spite  of  this,  and  perhaps  because  of  it, 
he  touched  souls  that  were  religiously  sensibilised  and 
he  conquered  the  crowd  by  the  dramatic  side  of  his 
story,  but  he  left  people  like  me,  cold  and  indifferent. 

In  the  course  of  the  reading  of  the  Gospels,  which  I 
have  just  completed,  he  appeared  to  me  freed  from  all 
theological  embellishments,  freed  from  dogma  and 
fables.  I  felt  him  invested  with  an  irresistible  author- 
ity. I  discovered  in  him  a  breadth  of  thought  that  I 
had  never  suspected,  a  generous  philosophy,  an  infinite 
goodness  and  indulgence.  He  has  conquered  me  intel- 
lectually, and  fascinated  me  by  his  mysticism  as  a  vision- 
ary. I  now  have  for  him  a  profound  admiration  and 
that  tender  pity  which  the  victims  of  sacrifices  inspire. 


222  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

He  was  certainly  one  of  the  Great  Initiators,  the  great- 
est of  them  all,  undoubtedly.  He  was,  above  all,  what 
he  delighted  in  calling  himself :  "  The  Son  of  Man." 
It  seems  to  me  that  I  understand  how  this  dream  came 
about  which  was  to  renew  the  Western  soul. 

Circumcision  and  monotheism  had  put  a  barrier  be- 
tween the  Jews  and  the  other  nations  which  isolated 
them  completely.  The  Jews  were  the  most  exclusive  of 
all  nations.  They  believed  themselves  to  be  the  favour- 
ites of  God.  Their  mind  was  concentrated  on  the 
Scriptures  which  promised  them  a  Liberator  and  an 
empire  more  powerful  than  that  of  the  Assyrians.  The 
Scriptures  were  their  literature,  their  poetry,  their 
spiritual  food.  They  loved  metaphysical  discussions, 
just  as  the  Greeks  loved  philosophical  discussions. 
Liberty  of  opinion,  which  was  allowed  to  them  all,  had 
resulted  in  the  foundation  of  a  quantity  of  sects.  The 
Temple  and  the  synagogues  were  not  only  places  for 
prayer,  but  schools  and  fields  of  ardent  polemic. 
Thanks  to  the  Essenians  and  the  Pharisees,  whom 
Greek  thought  had  reached,  the  doctrine  of  the  immor- 
tality of  the  soul  had  penetrated  among  them,  and  this 
alimented  their  controversies.  It  was  in  the  synagogue, 
no  doubt,  and  in  the  Scriptures  that  the  child  Jesus 
had  learnt  to  read.  His  mind  was,  probably,  saturated 
with  the  Scriptures.  St.  Luke  tells  us  that,  when  he 
was  twelve  years  old,  his  parents  took  him  to  Jerusalem 
for  the  feast  of  the  Passover  and  that  he  remained  in 
the  Temple.  They  found  him  there  three  days  later, 
arguing  with  the  doctors.  In  reply  to  the  reproaches 
of  his  parents,  he  said :  "  Wist  ye  not  that  I  must  be 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE          223 

about  my  Father's  business?  "  It  would  seem  as  though 
he  were  already  conscious  of  his  mission.  The  occult 
work  of  Providence  had  commenced  in  his  brain ;  and 
this  work  was  to  continue  for  the  next  twenty-one 
years.  Job's  complaints,  which  are  those  of  all  hu- 
manity, had  found  an  echo  within  him.  The  scape- 
goat, laden  with  the  sins  of  Israel  and  sent  to  die  in  the 
desert,  suggested  to  him,  perhaps,  the  heroic  desire  to 
take  upon  himself  the  sins  of  the  world  and  to  offer 
himself  as  a  sacrifice,  in  order  to  turn  away  punishment 
and  suffering  from  it.  Either  through  revelation  or 
auto-suggestion,  he  identified  himself  with  that  Mes- 
siah who  was  to  "  heal  broken  hearts."  Was  he  not 
the  last  scion  of  that  royal  house  of  David,  from  which 
it  was  written  that  the  Messiah  was  to  come?  Whilst 
working  with  his  hands,  whilst  walking  alone  in  the 
country  round  about  Galilee,  a  new  doctrine:  the  Ser- 
mon on  the  Mount,  the  unique  prayer  to  the  Father  in 
heaven,  was  being  elaborated  behind  his  forehead.  And 
then,  getting  more  and  more  exalted,  he  began  to  dream 
of  a  spiritual  perfection  such  as  had  never  yet  been  at- 
tained. I  fancy  he  must  have  read,  over  and  over 
again,  the  prophecies  about  the  Messiah,  and,  intoxi- 
cated with  the  idea  of  his  own  sacrifice,  he  must  have 
repeated,  with  all  the  voluptuousness  of  the  mystic: 
"  The  Son  of  Man  must  needs  suffer  much." 

When  the  necessary  elaboration  was  complete,  he  en- 
tered into  the  active  part  of  his  mission.  He  was 
baptised  in  the  Jordan  by  John  the  Baptist,  a  new 
prophet  who  had  declared  himself  to  be  the  forerunner 
of  "  him  who  was  to  come."  One  day,  in  the  syna- 


224    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

gogue  of  Nazareth,  having  stood  up  to  read,  the  book 
of  the  prophet  Isaiah  was  passed  to  him.  He  opened  it 
and  found  the  place  where  it  is  written:  "The  Spirit 
of  the  Lord  is  upon  me;  because  the  Lord  hath 
anointed  me  to  preach  the  gospel  to  the  poor,"  etc. 
After  closing  the  book  and  returning  it  to  the  minister, 
he  sat  down  and  declared  that  he  was  the  one  who  had 
been  sent.  This  scene  is,  I  think,  one  of  the  most  real 
and  impressive  of  any  in  the  New  Testament.  It 
taught  me  that  Jesus  knew  how  to  read  1 

During  the  three  years  that  followed,  in  the  Temple, 
under  Solomon's  Porch,  in  the  synagogues,  on  the  banks 
of  the  Jordan  and  of  the  Sea  of  Galilee  and  on  the  sur- 
rounding hills,  he  preached  what  we  call  "  Christian- 
ism."  He  exposed  in  warm,  sweet,  loving  words,  the 
dream  of  his  childhood  and  youth,  that  dream  which 
was  to  affect  millions  of  creatures.  He  represented 
God,  no  longer  as  an  implacable  Judge,  no  longer  as 
the  God  of  a  chosen  people,  but  as  the  God  of  all  hu- 
manity, as  a  good  and  merciful  Father,  with  whom  he 
was  in  constant  communion.  In  the  name  of  God  he 
promised  immortality,  a  kingdom  in  heaven,  where  the 
hungry  of  this  world  should  be  satisfied,  where  the 
afflicted  should  be  consoled  and  the  humble  exalted. 
And  what  was  still  more  unheard  of,  he  proclaimed  as 
blessed  those  who  suffered  and  those  to  whom  little  had 
been  given,  as  they  were  to  have  a  double  share  of 
glory.  He  endeavoured  to  make  this  fatherly  God 
known,  whom  he  wanted  to  give  to  the  Terrestrians. 
By  means  of  ingenious  and  very  Oriental  similes,  he 
brought  this  kingdom  nearer  and  made  it,  as  it  were, 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  225 

tangible.  He  spoke  of  fraternity  as  no  one  had  hith- 
erto spoken.  He  repeated  constantly  the  words: 
"  Love  one  another."  He  knew  well  that  earthly  hap- 
piness lay  in  that.  He  demanded  of  mankind  an  effort 
that  had  not  hitherto  been  given,  and  that  has  not  even 
yet  been  given,  that  of  returning  good  for  evil ;  instead 
of  dealing  blow  for  blow  he  wanted  men  to  love  their 
enemies.  He  preached  renunciation  of  the  good  things 
of  the  world;  he  declared  that,  in  order  to  serve  God, 
a  man  must  be  ready  to  leave  father,  mother,  family 
and  country.  And,  plunging  into  the  very  depths  of 
the  human  soul,  he  affirmed  that  the  mere  desire  to 
commit  adultery,  theft  or  murder,  constituted  the 
crime.  He  created,  in  this  way,  the  sin  of  thought. 
This  does  not  seem  much,  but  it  is  immense. 

And  Jesus  was  seen  practising  these  extraordinary 
things.  He  believed  that  he  had  the  power  of  remitting 
sin  and  he  used  this  power  freely,  with  a  joy  that  we 
can  \vell  imagine.  He  spoke  more  of  reward  than  of 
punishment.  He  only  threatened  with  eternal  fire  those 
who  refused  to  feed  and  clothe  the  poor.  He  went  him- 
self to  the  outcasts,  to  those  who  did  not  dare  come  to 
him,  his  gentlest  words  were  for  the  sinners  and  more 
especially  for  sinful  women.  He  pitied  the  crowd 
which  followed  him,  he  felt  for  every  one's  hunger  and 
fatigue  and  he  made  all  the  people  sit  down  and  then 
fed  them.  He  certainly  was  "  the  Son  of  Man." 
Yes,  he  had  pity  on  them,  but  his  pity  was  not  extended 
to  animals.  He  had  the  Oriental's  indifference  with  re- 
gard to  animals,  and  I  have  always  been  sorry  for  this 
and  also  surprised.  It  is  true  that  his  laws  of  kind- 


226          THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

ness  to  men  have  been  so  little  understood  and  so  little 
respected,  that  laws  of  kindness  to  inferior  creatures 
would  not  have  been  respected  at  all.  The  hour  of 
justice  had  not  yet  come  for  animals,  this  is  the  only 
possible  explanation, 

I  have  heard  mothers  say  timidly  that  Jesus  was 
hard  towards  his  own  family.  He  lived  on  another 
plane,  and  mystics  scarcely  feel  the  ties  of  flesh  and 
blood.  He  loved  his  disciples  more  than  his  family. 
They  were,  as  he  called  them,  "  his  dear  children," 
those  who  were  to  continue  his  teaching. 

Unlike  the  Jews,  who  made  no  proselytes,  fearing, 
no  doubt,  to  be  too  numerous  when  it  came  to  sharing 
the  empire  that  had  been  promised  them,  Jesus  said  to 
his  apostles :  "  Teach  all  nations."  He  did  not  ex- 
clude the  heathen,  or  the  Gentiles,  from  the  kingdom  of 
heaven.  He  wanted  his  church  to  be  universal,  like  the 
prayer  he  gave  us.  What  profound  philosophy  there 
is  in  all  this  I 

It  is  difficult  for  us,  with  our  ears  so  accustomed  to 
this  doctrine  that  we  no  longer  listen  to  it,  to  conceive 
the  effect  it  produced  in  the  synagogues.  It  must  have 
rent  the  veil  of  the  Temple.  For  those  who  offered 
sacrifices,  for  the  doctors  of  the  Old  Law,  it  constituted 
blasphemy  and  heresy.  It  seems  to  me  that  I  see  Jesus 
arguing  with  them,  punctuating  his  arguments  with 
his  forefinger  and  middle  finger,  with  the  grave,  impres- 
sive gesture  of  the  Oriental.  I  can  see  his  hearers 
drawing  the  skirts  of  their  garments  around  them  in 
anger,  as  they  questioned  and  endeavoured  to  confound 
him.  I  can  see  a  whole  crowd  of  dark,  threatening  eyes 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  227 

and  then  the  blue  eyes  of  the  Messiah.  I  can  see  beards 
quivering  with  indignation. 

Jesus  knew  quite  well  the  danger  to  which  he  was 
exposing  himself,  but  he  continued  his  preaching  all 
the  same.  He  had  governed  the  wind  on  the  Sea  of 
Gennesareth,  but  he  could  not  govern  the  hatred  which 
was  rumbling  all  around  him,  as  he  was  to  die  from  that 
hatred.  As  the  hour  of  the  supreme  sacrifice  ap- 
proached, one  feels  his  sadness  increasing.  He  speaks 
frequently  of  his  end  which  is  near,  and  he  gives  more 
and  more  instructions  to  his  apostles.  He  retires  more 
frequently  to  the  depths  of  the  woods  to  pray  and  to 
commune  with  his  heavenly  Father.  We  can  imagine 
how  he  must  have  regretted  leaving  his  little  flock  and 
not  seeing  his  Church  established.  At  any  rate,  he 
knew  what  the  prophets  had  not  known  —  that  we  must 
die,  in  order  to  be  born  again.  He  was  dying  for  the 
sake  of  his  ideal,  which  was  the  welfare  of  humanity. 
If  he  could  have  seen  what  was  to  be  the  outcome  of  his 
dream,  he  would  have  been  crucified  twice  over.  Let  us 
hope  that  this  was  hidden  from  him.  In  the  last  act 
of  the  drama,  all  that  is  human  in  him  protests,  all  that 
is  divine  is  resigned.  He  feels  the  bitterness  of  treach- 
ery, the  grief  of  seeing  himself  disowned,  the  horrors 
of  death.  He  was  thoroughly  "  the  Son  of  Man,"  and 
God  be  praised  for  that. 

In  the  eyes  of  the  doctors  of  the  Old  Law,  Jesus  was 
a  modernist ;  that  is,  he  represented  the  future.  The 
future  always  has  the  forces  of  the  past  against  it. 
Those  who  bear  it  along  may  die,  but  it  triumphs  al- 
ways —  until,  in  its  turn,  it  has  become  the  past,  the 


228 

vanquished  immortal.  One  cannot  help  a  humoristic 
smile  on  thinking  that  if,  four  centuries  later,  Christ 
had  reappeared  in  Rome  and  had  preached  his  doc- 
trine there,  he  would  have  been  treated  still  more  cruelly 
by  his  own  Church  than  he  was  by  the  Synagogue  of 
Jerusalem.  Such  is  the  movement  of  Life! 

I  must  own  that  I  read  this  poem  of  the  Gospel  as 
literature,  as  a  romance  writer  would  read  it.  I  revelled 
in  it,  as  I  still  can  revel  in  anything  that  is  very  beau- 
tiful. I  enjoyed  it  more,  and  I  understood  it  better, 
perhaps,  than  those  who  read  it  as  a  matter  of  duty, 
or  from  religious  habit.  The  apparitions  of  Christ 
after  death  give  the  impression  of  spiritualistic  phe- 
nomena. In  the  whole  of  the  last  part,  there  is  a  sort 
of  luminous  atmosphere. 

When  one  knows  the  Orient,  the  Gospel  seems  to 
have  been  lived  only  yesterday.  The  contradictions 
that  one  finds  in  it  are  somewhat  disenchanting,  but 
they  prove  that  the  apostles  had  not  concerted  together 
to  write  their  respective  accounts.  St.  Matthew,  St. 
Mark  and  St.  Luke,  for  instance,  say  that  the  women 
who  followed  Jesus  of  Galilee,  Mary  Magdalene  and 
Mary  the  mother  of  James  and  Joses,  and  the  mother  of 
Zebedee's  children  "  stood  afar  off."  They  do  not 
mention  the  presence  of  the  Virgin  at  all.  St.  John, 
alone,  brings  her  to  the  foot  of  the  cross  and  makes 
Jesus  say,  pointing  to  the  disciple  whom  he  loved: 
"  Woman,  behold  thy  son."  This,  I  feel  sure,  was 
added  by  the  theologians  —  and  it  rings  false.  In  the 
Orient,  women  would  not  have  been  present  at  the 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  229 

crucifixion,  they  would  have  looked  on  "  afar  off."  I 
can  picture  to  myself  their  group. 

I  have  my  doubts,  too,  as  to  whether  Jesus  ever  said, 
in  one  of  his  parables,  that  the  grain  of  mustard  seed 
waxed  a  great  tree  so  that  the  birds  of  the  air  could 
make  their  nest  in  it.  The  birds  of  the  air  making 
their  nest  in  the  branches  of  a  vegetable!  Oh,  St. 
Matthew!  Oh,  St.  Luke! 

In  the  gentleness  of  the  New  Testament,  one  does 
not  feel  any  dogma.  There  is  only  an  affectionate 
exhortation  to  well  doing,  which  is  the  secret  of  happi- 
ness. From  time  to  time,  though,  a  hard,  discordant 
note  bursts  forth,  like  those  famous  words :  "  Thou 
art  Peter,  and  upon  this  rock  I  will  build  my  church; 
and  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail  against  it.  And 
I  will  give  unto  thee  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven," 
etc.  This  is  again  a  theologian's  invention.  We  can- 
not imagine  Christ  saying  it.  These  words  were 
charged,  in  truth,  for  they  have  caused  the  death  of 
millions  of  creatures.  They  were  one  of  the  greatest 
motive  powers  of  the  Christian  evolution,  one  of  the 
most  painful  that  has  been  lived.  We  might  very  well 
repeat  here  with  Pilate :  "  What  I  have  written,  I 
have  written,"  and,  in  my  opinion,  this  had  to  be 
written. 

When  I  came  to  the  end  of  the  last  of  the  Gospels, 
of  the  Gospel  which  begins  like  one  of  Plato's  mono- 
logues and  which  ends  with  the  Hebrew  word,  "  Amen," 
with  a  long  flight  of  my  thought  I  went  over  all  that 
had  been  the  outcome  of  this  little  volume,  which  I  was 


230          THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

holding  half  open  under  my  left  thumb,  and  I  realised 
what  a  formidable  accumulator  of  spiritual  forces  it 
was.  I  felt  that  kind  of  awe,  as  I  gazed  at  it,  which 
the  great  mysteries  of  Nature  make  us  feel. 

The  brilliant,  white  form  which  came  from  the  tomb 
of  Jesus  was  his  doctrine,  the  true  Christianism.  It 
was  then,  alas,  only  an  apparition.  To  the  "  Quo 
vadis,  Domine?"  which  St.  Peter  asked  the  Master  at 
Rome,  on  the  Appian  Way,  he  might  have  replied: 
"  I  go  to  Rome  to  be  crucified  by  my  apostles  and  their 
successors."  Legend  knows  it  —  but  History  tells  it 
—  and  proves  it. 

The  prophet  of  Jordan  was  to  be  born  again  on  the 
banks  of  the  Tiber.  It  was  there,  in  the  capital  of  the 
civilised  world,  that  Paganism,  Judaism  and  Chris- 
tianism were  to  be  brought  into  harmony.  It  was  there 
that  the  one  God  was  to  meet  the  gods  of  Egypt,  of 
India,  of  Persia,  of  Greece  and  even  of  Rome,  in  order 
to  absorb  them  and  to  transform  them.  It  was  in 
•Rome  only  that,  out  of  the  dream  of  Jesus,  the  Catho- 
lic Church  could  have  been  established. 

I  am  told  that  actors,  artists  and  a  cinematographic 
apparatus  have  been  sent  to  Palestine  with  the  idea  of 
reconstituting  and  reproducing  the  immortal  drama. 
We  shall  then  be  able  to  live  over  again  the  waves  of 
emotion  lived  nearly  two  thousand  years  ago.  It  ap- 
pears that  this  is  necessary  for  us.  These  modern 
miracles  fill  me  with  admiration  and  cause  me  childish 
regret. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  Roman  Catholic  Church?  I  feel  my  little  barque, 
"  The  Why,"  terribly  tossed  about  just  here  by  waves 
from  the  depths.  I  am  now  facing  the  highest  and 
most  dangerous  point  of  my  cruise.  Shall  I  succeed 
in  doubling  this  point  without  being  shipwrecked  in 
injustice?  That  would  certainly  be  the  most  humiliat- 
ing of  all  shipwrecks. 

The  Catholic  Church !  How  many  are  there,  among 
its  two  hundred  and  fifty  million  adepts,  who  realise 
what  it  has  been  and  what  it  really  is?  Its  friends 
only  know  of  its  combats  and  its  triumphs,  its  enemies 
know  only  its  errors  and  crimes.  We  can  merely  put 
an  expurgated  history  of  it  into  the  hands  of  the  young. 
This  leaves  children  with  a  recollection  of  something 
so  tiresome  that  they  never  feel  inclined  to  read  it  later 
in  extenso,  and  that  fact  is  a  safeguard. 

One  day,  when  visiting  a  friend  who  lived  in  a  pro- 
vincial town,  the  conversation  turned  on  politics.  My 
friend's  husband,  who  was  very  reactionary,  reproached 
a  member  of  Parliament  with  the  misdeeds  of  the  Re- 
public. 

"  What  can  we  do?  "  replied  the  other;  "  the  Repub- 
lic must  do  as  the  Church  has  done,  make  amends  and 
improve." 

"  As  far  as  I  know,"  put  in  our  hostess  drily,  "  the 
Church  has  never  needed  to  make  amends  nor  to  im- 


prove." 


231 


232          THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

"  Yes,  but  then  you  do  not  know,  that  is  just  the 

mischief,"  said  M.  X ,  smiling.  "  Its  policy  has 

been  more  dishonest  than  ours  and  some  of  its  Popes 
have  been  acknowledged  criminals." 

My  poor  friend's  face  turned  purple  with  anger. 

"  That  is  mere  slander !  "  she  exclaimed.  "  I  shall 
never  believe  it,  never ! "  she  added,  poking  her  crochet- 
needle  energetically  into  her  ball  of  wool.  Faith  born 
of  ignorance  is  the  most  invincible  of  any. 

In  one  of  the  strongest  of  our  modern  comedies :  Busi- 
ness is  Business,  by  Octave  Mirbeau,  a  well-to-do  bour- 
geois, who  is  a  regular  miscreant,  says  to  a  poor  aristo- 
crat, who  is  a  believer:  "  You  do  not  even  know  what 
that  Church  of  yours  is ! "  He  knew,  though,  thanks 
to  his  intuition,  this  handler  of  money  and  of  men  and, 
in  his  exclamation,  we  can  hear  both  admiration  and 
envy. 

The  Roman  Catholic  Church!  The  Great  Prosti- 
tute! The  Red  Woman!  These  are  the  epithets  that 
its  fanatical  enemies  have  showered  upon  it,  but  all 
that  is  mere  literature.  These  are  ridiculous  insults 
which  simply  bear  witness  to  an  absolute  lack  of  phi- 
losophy and  to  coarse  ignorance.  It  really  is,  I  fancy, 
just  simply  the  Great  Misunderstood  One.  Thanks  to 
the  subjective  vision,  I  held  out  against  it  for  a  long 
time.  A  sentiment  that  I  cannot  understand  urged  me 
on  always  to  search  for  its  misdeeds  rather  than  for 
its  good  deeds,  and  when  I  discovered  them,  I  felt  the 
most  perverse  pleasure.  Its  policy,  its  ethics,  its 
tyranny,  made  all  that  was  best  within  me  rebel,  and 
this  best  within  me  made  me  unjust.  At  present,  when 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  233 

I  can  consider  it  in  an  objective  and  not  an  isolated 
way,  its  work  appears  to  me  colossal  and,  at  the  same 
time,  so  inevitable,  that  men  all  disappear  from  it  and 
I  only  see  God  there  as  the  supreme  motive  power.  The 
struggles,  the  victories,  the  defeats  of  the  Church  have 
been  those  of  humanity.  It  has  been  the  plaything  of 
Life.  It  has  had  to  suffer  all  the  ironies  of  Life,  its 
reverses  have  been  particularly  hard  and,  at  present, 
I  feel  the  tenderest  pity  for  it.  It  is  the  continuation 
of  Roman  History!  How  many  French  men  and  women 
are  there  who  know  this?  It  was  taken  along  to  the 
throne  of  the  Csesars,  because,  from  there  alone,  it 
could  "  renew  the  face  "  of  the  Western  world.  The 
establishment  of  Christianism  in  pagan  Rome  has  been 
considered  as  a  miracle.  Miracles  are  always  prepared 
a  long  time  ahead  by  Providence.  When  an  unexpected, 
extraordinary  event  takes  place,  or  some  cure  that  was 
considered  hopeless,  we  may  be  sure  that  invisible  forces 
have  been  working  for  all  this,  unknown  to  us.  Pagan- 
ism, which  was  about  to  die,  was  waiting  for  Christian- 
ism,  as  it  needed  this  for  its  evolution.  The  Judaic 
Church,  which  was  established  in  Jerusalem  directly 
after  the  death  of  Christ,  also  needed  Paganism,  in 
order  to  be  transformed  and  to  accomplish  the  fabulous 
task  which  had  been  assigned  to  it.  As  a  Spanish 
proverb  says :  "  God  writes  straight  on  crooked  lines." 
Rome  was  the  holy  city  of  the  Western  world.  The 
boundary  of  the  ancient  city  had  been  traced  according 
to  Latin  or  Etruscan  rites.  It  had  taken  the  gods  of 
Greece  and  its  theologians  had  made  a  multitude  of 
other  gods,  too,  for  it.  It  had  divined  all  the  forces 


234  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

of  Life,  those  which  take  man  along  from  his  cradle 
to  his  tomb,  those  which  give  birth  to  sorrow,  joy  and 
love,  those  which  produce  the  fruits  and  flowers  of  the 
soil  —  and  even  clothing.  And  these  were  not  mere 
metaphysical  abstractions  and  symbols,  but  living  pow- 
ers which  had  a  personality  and  names,  powers  which 
it  adored  and  to  which  it  prayed  unceasingly.  The 
number  of  these  was  so  great  that  only  the  priests  could 
catalogue  them.  With  its  legislative  mind,  Rome  had, 
as  it  were,  made  Olympus  form  a  regiment  and  created 
a  religious  law  with  dogmas  and  worship.  This  law 
was  an  integral  part  of  the  State,  it  could  not  be 
changed  without  a  special  decree  from  the  Senate.  It 
regulated  the  intercourse  of  man  with  the  divinities; 
it  regulated  all  rites  and  forms  of  prayer  with  a  minute- 
ness that  seems  ridiculous.  Titus  Livius,  alluding  to 
this,  says :  "  These  are  small  things,  but  it  was  by 
not  disdaining  these  small  things,  that  our  fathers  made 
Rome  so  great."  And,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  these  small 
tilings  maintained  unity  there,  that  immense  force 
which  the  Catholic  Church  was  to  obtain,  later  on,  so 
dearly.  Religion  had  its  pontiffs,  priests,  sacred  juris- 
consults, but  they  could  never  become  independent,  as 
they  were  deprived  of  initiative  and  of  executive  power. 
This  seems  to  have  been  arranged  in  order  to  lessen 
the  resistance  opposed  to  the  establishment  of  Chris- 
tianism. 

No  nation  has  had  so  much  religion  and  so  little 
religious  sentiment  as  the  Romans.  All  the  various  acts 
of  their  life,  birth,  the  wearing  of  the  toga,  marriage, 
anniversaries,  were  religious  acts  and  solemnised  as 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE          235 

such.  They  had  endless  processions,  fetes  for  all  cir- 
cumstances, for  the  seed-time  and  harvest  and  for  the 
dead.  They  offered  up  prayers  for  the  welfare  of  a 
beloved  child,  for  the  victorious  return  of  a  friend,  for 
the  healing  of  their  sick.  The  walls  of  their  temples 
were  covered  with  their  ex-votos,  as  those  of  Christian 
Churches  were  to  be,  later  on.  The  poor  Terrestrian 
has  always  had  the  same  faith,  because  he  has  always 
had  the  same  sorrows. 

The  Romans  consulted  the  gods  about  everything. 
They  believed,  as  the  whole  of  the  Ancient  World  did, 
that  they  could  correspond  with  their  gods  by  means 
of  magic,  an  infinite  number  of  signs,  the  arrangement 
of  the  intestines  of  victims,  sacrifices  which  the  priests 
interpreted  in  return  for  retributions.  Official  religion 
had  given  to  the  Romans  an  official  soul,  and  to  this 
soul  form  was  everything.  In  the  end  they  believed 
that  the  divinities,  like  themselves,  were  most  particu- 
lar with  regard  to  the  exactitude  of  a  rite  or  of  a  ges- 
ture. They  treated  their  gods  on  an  equal  footing. 
They  endeavoured  to  buy  their  favours  and,  when  they 
gave  a  good  price,  they  expected  a  great  deal  in  re- 
turn. According  to  them :  "  Piety  gave  the  right  to 
fortune." 

This  State  religion  underwent  all  the  political  vicissi- 
tudes. It  was  weakened  by  the  Republic,  but  Augustus 
re-established  it.  If  we  are  to  believe  the  inscriptions, 
every  emperor  re-established  something.  The  century 
of  Augustus  was  called  "  the  devout  century."  All 
literature  was  religious.  Horace,  Tibullus  and  Ovid 
sang  of  the  gods.  There  was  a  splendid  flame  of  Pagan 


236    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

faith.  It  was  the  last  flash  from  the  lamp  that  was  to 
die  away.  From  the  very  first  days  of  the  world,  hu- 
manity had  knocked  at  the  doors  of  the  Beyond,  but 
under  Augustus  there  was  a  rush  for  these  doors.  Gods 
and  demons  spoke  to  men  in  their  dreams,  or,  at  least, 
they  believed  this,  and  what  we  believe  becomes  real. 
People  believed  in  hell,  in  the  resurrection  of  the  dead, 
and  the  imagination  conceived  all  kinds  of  wonders. 
The  supernatural  appeared  natural.  This  phenomenon 
has  happened  at  the  eve  of  all  evolutions  and  the  evo- 
lution was  then  quite  near.  The  human  soul  lacked 
spirituality.  It  was  a  splendid  temple,  but  it  was  bare 
and  empty  and  Providence  was  about  to  fill  it.  For 
this,  the  myrrh  of  the  Orient  was  to  be  mixed  with  the 
wine  of  the  Occident,  and  this  mixture  took  place  in  a 
wonderful  way. 

In  order  to  comprehend  the  work  of  the  Roman  Cath- 
olic Church,  and  indeed  all  divine  and  human  work,  and 
to  consider  it  with  any  justice,  we  must  never  lose  sight 
of  that  absolute  truth  that  struggle  is  the  generating 
element  of  Life,  and  that  without  struggle  Life  could 
neither  exist  nor  be  renewed.  The  cross  -with  unequal 
arms,  icith  lines  that  go  in  opposite  ways,  is  the  reveal- 
ing symbol  of  this. 

Like  all  great  things,  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
began  in  a  very  humble  way,  and  those  who  were  there 
at  this  beginning  would  have  been  incapable  of  imag- 
ining the  parabola  that  it  was  called  upon  to  describe. 

The  dream  of  Jesus  had  created,  in  Jerusalem,  a  sort 
of  Judaic  Church,  the  fifteen  first  Bishops  of  which 
were  circumcised  and  baptised.  This  proves  how  hesi- 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE     237 

tating  their  belief  was.  In  obedience  to  the  Master 
who  had  said :  "  Go  and  teach  all  nations,"  a  few 
of  the  apostles  had  set  out  to  take  the  Gospel  of  charity 
to  the  great  cities  of  the  Orient.  St.  Peter  and  St. 
John  went  to  Rome.  They  arrived  there,  as  Jesus  had 
ordered :  "  with  neither  gold  nor  silver."  The  humble 
pilgrims  received  the  hospitality  of  St.  Pudens  who  had 
two  daughters,  Praxede  and  Pudentienne.  These  were, 
I  believe,  their  first  converts.  With  their  souls  still 
aglow  from  their  communion  with  Christ,  they  told  the 
humble  people  whom  they  gathered  round  them,  the 
story  of  the  drama  of  Eden,  of  the  Incarnation  of  the 
God-Saviour,  of  his  life  and  of  his  death.  They  re- 
vealed to  them  the  existence  of  a  heavenly  kingdom, 
where  all  was  j  oy,  delight  and  love ;  of  a  hell,  where 
all  was  suffering,  pain  and  hatred.  Of  these  two  king- 
doms they  said  that  they  held  the  keys,  and  they  prom- 
ised the  entrance  to  those  who  would  consent  to  the 
ceremony  of  baptism,  which  was  to  wash  away  all  sins. 
They  had  enough  to  offer  for  making  proselytes  and 
they  made  them,  beginning  with  those  whom  Christ  him- 
self would  have  called:  the  disinherited,  the  slaves,  the 
black  sheep.  A  sect  was  thus  formed,  the  members  of 
which  led  each  other  on  to  adopt  the  difficult  practices 
of  the  Gospel.  They  had  all  things  in  common,  their 
poverty  and  their  worldly  goods,  they  sat  at  the  same 
table  and,  as  a  foretaste  of  Paradise,  the  hungry  were 
fed,  the  naked  clothed  and  the  afflicted  consoled.  The 
great  Roman  lady  called  the  poor  woman  "  Sister  " ; 
the  patrician  treated  the  humble  workman  as  a  brother, 
and  the  kind  of  voluptuous  pleasure  which  these  fresh 


238    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

sentiments  gave  them  can  easily  be  imagined.  These 
early  Christians  surrounded  themselves  with  mystery 
and  erected  their  altars  in  subterranean  passages  out- 
side the  gates  of  Rome.  They  broke  bread  and  drank 
wine  according  to  a  very  old  rite,  a  Persian  rite,  I  be- 
lieve, which  Jesus  had  reinstituted.  To  this  rite,  they 
added  the  belief  in  transubstantiation,  a  belief  which 
was  to  produce  wonderful  psychical  effects.  The  sect, 
thanks  to  its  very  perfection,  would  have  died  out,  if 
persecutions  had  not  brought  it  to  the  front  and  made 
it  play  its  part,  which  it  certainly  did  admirably. 
After  this,  theologians  took  it  in  hand  and  gave  it  the 
movement  common  to  all  religions :  the  spiral  moi'ement, 
by  means  of  which  religions  gradually  get  farther  and 
farther  away  from  their  starting-point.  I  do  not  like 
theologians.  They  are  religious  politicians,  "  those 
who  make  God's  plans  less  clear  to  us,  thanks  to  their 
discourses  without  understanding."  They  defended  the 
sect  with  lies  more  often  than  with  truths.  They  have 
increased,  rather  than  lessened,  the  sorrows  of  the  world. 
They  have  been  agents  of  our  struggle :  they  have  served 
and  they  are  still  serving.  We  must  resign  ourselves 
in  face  of  this  undeniable  fact,  and  endeavour  not  to 
bear  them  too  much  ill-will.  They  were  necessary,  in 
order  to  put  that  fresh  force,  spirituality,  into  action. 
Like  all  forces,  newly  set  free,  it  went  to  extremes.  The 
body  which  had,  very  rightly,  been  loved  and  cared  for, 
the  body  which  is  the  cradle  of  the  soul,  was  now  only 
looked  upon  as  an  instrument  of  perdition.  It  was 
starved,  it  was  not  allowed  the  most  legitimate  satis- 
factions —  not  even  cleanliness  !  The  disciples  of  Jesus 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  239 

did  not  wash  their  hands  before  sitting  down  to  table, 
and  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees  reproached  them  for  this 
omission.  This  little  characteristic  feature,  which  is 
recorded  in  the  Gospel,  had  its  influence  on  the  entire 
discipline  of  the  primitive  Church.  This  world  of  ours 
was  no  longer  anything  to  the  early  Christians.  They 
lived  in  the  Beyond,  in  a  Beyond  that  they  had  created. 
The  effort  was  so  great  that  it  produced  a  kind  of 
spiritual  hysteria.  They  knew  all  the  voluptuousness 
of  sorrow  and  they  even  went  in  search  of  it.  In  the 
amphitheatre,  they  died  as  though  death  were  a  heav- 
enly joy.  They  had  visions,  fits  of  ecstasy,  they 
prophesied,  they  believed  that  they  saw  demons  and 
they  drove  these  demons  away.  Their  imagination, 
thanks  to  sermons,  was  heated  to  the  degree  of  white 
heat  and  was  exalted  by  pagan  supernaturalism.  It 
began  to  make  legends  and  saints,  just  as  the  Romans 
had  made  divinities,  and,  wonderfully  enough,  out  of 
the  depths  of  the  Christian  dream,  as  out  of  the  Buddhist 
and  Pagan  dreams,  came  the  Virgin  Mary.  In  the 
Gospel,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  she  only  appears  three 
times.  We  have  only  her  dialogue  with  the  angel,  her 
song,  the  Magnificat,  which  is,  undoubtedly,  the  work  of 
some  theologian-poet,  and  then  the  words  uttered  by 
her  at  the  marriage  of  Cana,  by  means  of  which  she 
persuaded  Jesus  to  advance  the  hour  of  his  mission 
by  performing  a  miracle.  With  this  material,  Chris- 
tian humanity  made  a  metaphysical  personage  of  ex- 
treme grandeur.  In  its  childish  logic,  it  attributed  to 
her  an  immense  power  over  the  God  for  whose  Incar- 
nation she  had  served,  and  it  built  its  hopes  on  her. 


240     THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

It  erected  temples  for  her,  it  put  her  on  its  altars  and 
proclaimed  her  immaculate  and  sorrowful.  In  the 
cellules  of  thousands  of  artists,  this  ideal  picture  took 
form  and  produced  immortal  master-pieces.  The  Vir- 
gin Mother!  There  is  certainly  a  symbol  here,  and  it 
is  in  Nature.  What  does  this  symbol  hide?  This 
truth,  perhaps,  that  man  proceeds  from  God  and  not 
from  man.  I  cannot  see  anything  else  in  it,  but  it 
is  true  that  I  do  not  see  very  deep  down.  Let  phi- 
losophers search,  for  this  problem  is  well  worth  while. 
The  Church  of  the  first  centuries  had  its  romantic 
followers.  They  began  to  live,  not  according  to  the 
precepts  of  the  Gospel,  but  according  to  their  own 
dream,  a  morbid  dream  which  depressed  them.  Thus, 
like  Buddhism,  Christianism  had  its  stoics ;  its  fakirs 
who  discovered  how  to  make  themselves  refractory  to 
suffering;  its  cynics  who  disdained,  not  only  cleanli- 
ness, but  decency,  who  went  as  far  as  to  browse  the 
grass  of  the  fields,  in  order  to  perform  an  act  of  hu- 
mility. There  were  actually  browsing  monks.  This 
Asiatic  folly  spread  and  made  monks  of  men.  When 
it  reached  the  feminine  brain,  it  produced  monkesscs. 
It  peopled  the  most  awful  solitudes  with  anchorites  and 
cenobites.  It  flung  into  the  sands  of  Libya,  and  among 
the  rocks  of  Thebaid,  colonies  who  built  veritable  hives 
there,  hives  which  were  the  rough  beginnings  of  future 
monasteries.  It  was  there  that  living  in  community 
was  inaugurated,  and  it  was  there,  under  the  pure  and 
ardent  sky  of  Egypt,  that  men  prayed  day  and  night. 
The  rustic  trumpet  or  cornet,  summoning  to  spiritual 
exercises,  must,  more  than  once,  have  silenced  the  wild 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

beasts  and  greatly  impressed  the  spirit  of  the  desert. 
These  repulsive,  wild  monks,  when  taken  to  Rome  by 
their  primate,  had  the  most  unexpected  success.  By 
their  violent  and  picturesque  preaching,  they  exercised 
a  sort  of  magnetism  on  the  crowd  and  this  resulted 
in  numerous  conversions.  Patricians  and  magistrates 
transformed  their  palaces  into  monasteries.  The  dream 
became  more  and  more  extravagant  and  went  as  far  as 
claiming  divinity.  St.  Paula,  who  was  converted  by 
St.  Jerome,  was  called  "  the  mother-in-law  of  God," 
because  she  had  given  to  Him  one  of  her  daughters  as 
a  mystic  spouse ! 

This  development  of  the  inner  life,  this  florescence 
of  fresh  mysticism,  constituted  one  of  those  phenomena, 
ordained,  perhaps,  in  order  to  reveal  to  us  the  depth 
of  our  being.  The  human  soul  made  a  desperate  effort 
to  free  itself  from  its  body.  It  did  not  succeed,  but  it 
was  a  very  wild  and  very  fine  effort.  We  cannot  regret 
that  the  effort  was  made.  When  a  famous  chef  lights 
his  fires  for  the  first  time  anywhere,  he  first  prepares 
what  is  called  his  stock,  which  means  his  gravies,  jellies, 
condensed  things  of  all  kinds  with  which  he  can,  after- 
wards, make  very  good  things.  Well  then,  without  any 
irreverence,  it  seems  to  me  that  Providence  acted  in  the 
same  way.  In  order  to  sustain  the  Church,  Providence 
prepared  a  foundation  of  spiritual  forces  which,  during 
nineteen  hundred  years,  have  enabled  it  to  brave  the 
terrible  eddies  behind  its  rudder,  and  so  arrive  safe  and 
sound  to  cast  anchor  at  its  haven. 

The  Christian  sect  replaced  bloody  sacrifices  by 
sacrifices  of  money.  This  was,  perhaps,  quite  as  bar- 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

barous,  but  less  repugnant  in  appearance.  Its  priests 
soon  learnt  how  to  make  use  of  St.  Peter's  keys.  In 
order  to  obtain  the  remission  of  their  sins,  many  of 
their  new  converts  despoiled  themselves  of  their  wealth. 
The  Church  soon  possessed  farms,  houses  and  even 
shops,  later  on  it  was  to  have  a  treasury  and  States  of 
its  own.  "  The  Word  was  made  flesh,"  and  it  soon  had 
all  the  longings  and  ambitions  of  the  flesh.  There  is 
nothing  astonishing  in  that. 

All  the  great  religions,  and  even  the  small  ones,  have 
handled  sin-money.  They  have  lived  on  it  and  they  still 
live  on  it.  They  are  also  charged  with  the  task  of 
transmuting  it  into  good.  If  evil  were  not  to  serve 
for  good,  it  would  not  exist.  The  most  beautiful  monu- 
ments erected  to  the  gods  and  to  God  are  expiatory 
monuments.  The  Catholic  Church  has  transmuted  its 
sin-money  in  a  more  magnificent  way  than  any  other 
Church  has  done.  It  has  transmuted  it  into  works  of 
art,  which  are  the  joy  and  the  education  of  our  eyes; 
into  works  of  relief  which  have  helped  humanity  to  live 
and  to  die.  St.  Paul,  the  philosopher-apostle,  appears 
to  have  grasped  the  idea  of  this  admirable  and  humor- 
istic  economy  of  Nature  when  he  says :  "  The  law 
entered  that  the  offence  might  abound.  But  where  sin 
abounded,  grace  did  much  more  abound."  This  takes 
away  from  sin  its  character  of  offence  to  God  and  gives 
the  impression  of  balance  being  re-established  —  and 
this  is,  undoubtedly,  the  truth  of  things. 

The  Roman  Catholic  Church  has  been  a  democratic 
dream,  a  theocratic  dream  and  a  monarchical  dream. 
Its  dreams  have  all  been  realised,  but  only  for  a  short 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  243 

time.  The  ending  of  each  dream  has  left  the  Church 
humiliated  and  weakened.  Its  fine,  democratic  frater- 
nity was  conquered  by  human  egoism;  its  ambition  was 
the  spiritual  domination  over  all  souls,  and  so  it  lost 
forever  the  Greek  Church,  England  and  Germany, 
—  the  nations  that  it  had  made.  The  temporal  king- 
dom it  had  built  up  was  taken  away  from  it,  even  the 
territory  that  kings,  such  as  Pepin,  had  given,  "  for 
the  remission  of  their  sins  and  the  salvation  of  their 
soul."  It  was  saved  three  times  by  its  enemies,  by 
Paganism,  by  the  Renaissance  and  by  the  Reformation. 
Was  I  not  right  in  saying  that  it  has  played  Life's 
game,  but  not  its  own? 

Religions  do  not  come  from  the  human  brain  ready 
made.  They  are  formed  slowly  under  divine  inspira- 
tion. Christian  theologians  drew  from  the  doctrine  of 
Christ  certain  fixed  dogmas.  Those  of  the  Trinity  and 
of  the  Incarnation  were  particularly  difficult  to  elab- 
orate. Finally  they  established  the  dogma  that  the 
Son  proceeded  from  the  Father,  and  that  the  Holy 
Spirit  proceeded  from  the  Father  and  the  Son.  After 
stormy  discussions,  they  decided  that  Mary  could  be 
a  virgin  and  a  mother,  "  just  as  light  may  pass  through 
crystal  without  breaking  it."  The  fact  that  Terres- 
trians,  creatures  who,  from  the  height  of  a  few  yards, 
look  as  though  they  are  part  of  the  ground  of  their 
planet,  should  dare  to  make  God  come  down  to  them, 
in  order  to  conciliate  His  immensity  with  their  small- 
ness,  seemed  grotesque  to  me  formerly  and  roused  my 
indignation,  just  as  a  blasphemy  would  have  done.  At 
present,  I  see  in  this  a  proof  of  our  possibilities ;  I  see 


344    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

in  it  a  great  hope.  And,  always  with  a  view  to  the 
eternal  struggle,  as  soon  as  a  dogma  was  proclaimed, 
an  adverse  dogma  appeared,  creating  a  rival  community, 
the  members  of  which  were  heretics  and,  as  such,  were 
condemned,  persecuted  and  tortured  by  the  mother- 
community.  Taking  the  times  into  consideration,  this 
cruelty  was  necessary  by  way  of  maintaining  unity. 
A  lack  of  unity  would  have  produced  still  more  evil. 
That  is  what  we  must  say  to  ourselves.  Before  be- 
coming a  heretic  himself,  Nestorius  wrote  to  the  Em- 
peror Theodosius :  "  Caesar,  give  me  the  earth  purged 
of  heretics  and  I  will  give  you  the  kingdom  of  heaven." 
This  man,  with  his  heart  full  of  hatred,  imagined  that 
he  could  dispose  of  the  kingdom  of  Heaven !  Each  one 
of  our  dogmas  has  produced  waves  and  waves  of  suffer- 
ing, just  as  it  has  produced  waves  and  waves  of  conso- 
lation! All  this  is  the  play  of  Life! 

The  theologians  then  proceeded  to  manufacture 
canonical  laws,  bulls  of  indulgence,  bulls  of  excommuni- 
cation, a  whole  arsenal  of  spiritual  weapons  which  were 
to  serve  in  ruling  the  nations  and  in  holding  kings  in 
check.  The  kingdom  of  heaven,  of  which  Jesus  had 
dreamed  amidst  the  dreary  scenery  of  Palestine,  was 
transformed  on  the  Pagan  banks  of  the  Tiber.  It  now 
became  an  Eden  of  gold  and  precious  stones,  where 
man's  table  was  always  set  and  supplied  with  delicious 
things.  At  the  same  time,  by  means  of  the  eloquent 
voices  of  its  preaching  Fathers,  the  Church  flung  into 
the  human  mind  fearful  visions  and  all  the  terror  of  a 
fire  which  burned  always  and  never  consumed.  It 
kept  its  hold  on  man,  thanks  to  his  innate  need  of  hap- 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  245 

piness  and  his  dread,  which  is  also  innate,  of  suffering. 
Man  could  not  escape,  for  humanity  always  has  the 
beliefs  that  are  necessary  for  it. 

It  is  high  time  that  we  had  courage  enough  to  look 
boldly  at  the  play  of  Life,  this  play  of  which  we  are 
the  victims,  the  martyrs  and  sometimes  the  heroes.  We 
must  have  philosophy  enough  not  to  be  scandalised  by 
it  and  to  understand  that,  whatever  it  may  be,  it  is 
directed  by  God.  All  the  good  and  evil  that  the  Church 
has  accomplished  has  been  by  means  of  St.  Peter's  keys, 
which  give  access  to  Paradise  and  to  hell.  They  have 
been  the  keystone  of  the  Church.  It  is  very  natural, 
although  it  is  a  pretty  irony,  that  these  keys  should 
figure  on  its  escutcheon.  These  symbolical,  imaginary 
and  invisible  things,  the  power  of  which  no  one  has  yet 
been  able  to  compute,  served  to  convert  the  barbarians 
of  Northern  Europe,  to  bring  them  into  the  plan  of 
civilisation,  to  make  nations  of  them;  they  served  to 
create  France,  Germany,  Spain  and  England.  They 
procured  for  the  Church,  money,  which  is  as  much  the 
nerve  of  religion  as  it  is  of  war.  They  brought  Con- 
stantine  within  its  pale.  The  gift  of  the  Basilica,  of 
the  Palace  of  St.  John  of  Lateran,  of  St.  Peter's  Church 
and  of  the  modest  dwelling  which  was  eventually  to  be 
the  nucleus  of  the  Vatican,  was  to  obtain  for  the  Em- 
peror the  remission  of  his  sins,  including  the  murder 
of  his  son,  his  father-in-law  and  numerous  massacres. 
These  two  mother-cells  were  the  transmutation  of  sin- 
money. 

Thanks  to  the  magic  of  these  keys,  the  successor  of 
St.  Peter,  at  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  century,  drove 


246    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

through  the  streets  of  Jupiter's  city,  dressed  superbly 
and  seated  in  a  triumphal  chariot,  and  the  people  all 
bowed  before  him  as  he  passed.  The  Church  of  Rome 
had  a  most  rigid  hierarchy,  a  liturgy,  a  particular  mel- 
ody of  its  own,  magnificent  ceremonies,  a  college  of 
priests  and  of  bishops,  legions  of  monks,  a  regular 
clergy  and  a  secular  clergy  (two  Siamese  brothers  who 
were  enemies  and  whom  it  was  impossible  to  separate 
without  killing  the  two  bodies).  It  had  prophets  who 
were  its  augurs,  and  saints  who  were  its  tutelary  gods. 
The  early  Christians  had  forbidden  images,  fearing 
that  these  might  lead  the  people  back  to  idolatry. 
They  were  now  allowed,  in  order  to  exalt  people's  de- 
votion and  concentrate  their  thoughts.  Some  images 
were  produced  that  were  not  made  by  the  hand  of  man. 
One  of  these  was  the  imprint  of  Christ's  face,  said  to 
have  been  left  on  St.  Veronica's  handkerchief,  thanks 
to  the  sweat  and  blood  of  his  agony.  This  still  exists 
and  is  exhibited,  in  Rome,  on  Good  Friday,  for  public 
veneration.  The  Greeks,  obeying  the  will  of  their  peas- 
ant Emperor,  Leo,  the  Isaurian,  had  also  put  away 
images  of  all  kinds.  They,  too,  were  obliged  to  restore 
them,  as  their  Asiatic  soul,  more  than  any  other,  needed 
icons.  And  thus  it  was  that  Christians  burnt  incense 
before  symbols,  just  as  their  Pagan  ancestors  had  done 
before  their  idols.  Nothing  dies  and  everything  is 
renewed.  Thanks  to  a  superb  lack  of  logic,  it  was  now 
believed  that  the  human  body,  that  body  which  had 
been  so'  despised,  retained  something  of  the  psychical 
power  of  the  saints,  the  gift  of  miracles,  for  instance, 
and  its  remains  were  considered  sacred.  I  fancy  this 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  247 

must  have  been  the  idea  of  some  monk.  One  of  my 
friends  who  had  bought  a  thirteenth-century  reliquary, 
found  a  bone  in  it  —  made  of  plaster.  "  I  would  wager 
anything,"  he  said,  crushing  a  particle  of  it  between 
his  finger  and  thumb,  "  that  this  has  healed  people,  for 
it  is  always  faith  that  heals." 

And  all  this  was  willed  by  the  gods.  The  poor  Ter- 
restrian  has  not  only  to  live  his  own  ideal,  but  to  fix 
it  in  stone,  on  wood,  or  on  canvas,  in  order  to  transmit 
it  to  future  generations  and  so  produce  the  accumula- 
tors which  are  to  communicate  to  them  sparks  of  the 
higher  life.  And  this  is,  in  my  opinion,  one  of  the 
most  wonderful  things  of  our  romance.  Like  all  the 
great  religions,  Roman  Catholic  Christianism  was  to 
possess  a  treasury  of  art.  It  inspired  legions  of  artists 
and  gave  us  master-pieces  of  psychical  beauty.  We 
must  be  grateful  to  it  for  this. 

Without  being  aware  of  it,  the  Church  of  Rome  was 
penetrated,  from  its  earliest  hours,  by  the  Pagan  and 
Imperial  atmosphere  of  the  City  of  the  Caesars,  by  its 
legislative,  constructive  and  dominating  genius.  It  ab- 
sorbed forces  which  were  to  lead  it  on  to  victory  and 
to  defeat.  After  a  patient,  and  somewhat  cruel  strug- 
gle, it  conquered  supremacy  over  all  the  other  Churches, 
even  over  the  Greek  Church,  which  had  incontestable 
superiority  as  regards  knowledge.  The  conversion  of 
Constantine  was  its  triumph.  At  the  end  of  the  fourth 
century,  the  Senate  of  the  Eastern  and  Western  Em- 
pire was  convoked  by  Theodosius  the  Great  and  called 
upon  to  vote  for  Jupiter  or  for  Christ.  After  all  that 
I  have  just  written,  this  seems  to  me  most  fantastical. 


248    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

The  prophet  of  Nazareth  won  the  day  over  the  master 
of  Olympus.  This  was,  perhaps,  because  he  was  the 
Emperor's  candidate  and  snobbism  has  always  existed. 
Christianism  was  thereupon  declared  to  be  the  State 
religion.  The  wealth  of  the  College  of  Pagan  Pontiffs 
passed  over  to  the  new  religion  and,  many  centuries 
later,  the  wealth  of  this  very  religion  was  to  be  con- 
fiscated for  the  benefit  of  the  State,  which  had  no  longer 
any  religion  at  all.  These  constant  reversions  always 
excite  my  admiration  as  a  novelist. 

St.  Peter's  barque,  when  it  had  once  become  a 
Dreadnought,  finally  left  the  tranquil  waters  of  the 
Sea  of  Galilee,  and  was  launched  upon  the  vast  waters 
of  the  world  and  of  politics.  The  Romans,  left  by  the 
Greek  Emperors  to  struggle  with  barbarians  and  fac- 
tions, deserted  the  Capital  for  the  little  Christian 
Basilica,  where  they  found  religious  spectacles  and  ma- 
terial and  spiritual  help.  They  grouped  themselves 
around  the  Bishop,  who  had  taken  the  name  of  Pope. 
They  elected  him  themselves  and  he  won  for  himself  a 
kind  of  political  authority.  The  clergy  presented  two 
or  three  candidates  to  them  for  election,  and  they  then 
chose  their  Father,  or  at  least  they  believed  that  they 
chose  him.  It  was  a  piece  of  supreme  cleverness  to  give 
to  the  people  the  right  of  voting,  or  rather  the  illu- 
sion of  having  that  right.  The  people,  eternal  children 
as  they  are,  never  had,  and  have  not  even  now,  anything 
but  this  illusion.  Later  on,  the  Holy  Spirit  was  to 
transmit  its  will  through  the  College  of  Cardinals. 

Just  as  Rome  had  had  good  and  bad  Emperors,  so 
it  was  to  have  good  and  bad  Popes,  because  under  the 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  249 

tiara,  just  as  under  the  Imperial  circlet,  there  were 
virtues  and  vices.  It  had  Gregory  I,  who,  for  a  whole 
week,  abstained  from  administering  the  sacraments,  be- 
cause a  beggar  had  died  in  the  street  of  hunger.  It 
had  John  XII,  the  son  of  a  courtesan,  who  was  noth- 
ing but  a  drunken,  brutal  soldier,  and  all  these  Popes 
had  their  part  in  the  play  of  Life. 

Christianism,  which  had  entered  Rome  like  a  lamb, 
became  a  roarin'g  lion  there,  and  its  roarings  "  renewed 
the  face  "  of  the  Western  World  and  made  the  Middle 
Ages. 

The  Middle  Ages  were  a  monk's  dream,  the  lewd  pic- 
tures of  which  are  still  to  be  seen  on  the  doorways  of 
our  old  cathedrals.  This  dream  was  peopled  with  de- 
mons, with  grimacing  faces,  like  those  of  the  gargoyles. 
It  was  the  dream  of  a  prisoner  who  had  never  felt  the 
warmth  of  a  ray  of  sunshine,  never  breathed  the  per- 
fume of  a  flower,  never  listened  to  the  song  of  a  bird, 
never  seen  God  in  His  works.  The  Middle  Ages  had 
a  horror  of  Nature,  just  as  night  has  a  horror  of  the 
day.  The  Middle  Ages  even  looked  upon  Nature  as 
a  heretic.  In  the  name  of  Christ,  the  Middle  Ages  tor- 
tured millions  of  human  creatures,  cut  off  precious 
limbs,  tore  out  the  tongue  with  which  thought  is  uttered, 
blinded  the  seeing  pupils  of  the  eyes. 

The  Middle  Ages  brought  about  the  great  sanguinary 
schism  which  was  to  divide  Christianism  into  the  Church 
of  the  East  and  the  Church  of  the  West.  The  Greek 
Church,  having  taken  upon  itself  to  declare  that  the 
Holy  Spirit  proceeded  from  the  Father  alone,  the  Latin 
Church,  in  order  to  affirm  its  superiority,  decreed,  at 


250          THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

the  Council  of  Nice,  the  addition  of  the  word  — 
Fttioque,  and  of  the  Son.  Filioque !  Here  we  have  an- 
other word,  just  a  little  word,  that  was  loaded, —  and 
with  cannon-balls!  It  brought  about  ecclesiastical 
war,  the  crudest  war  of  any.  It  engendered  odious 
crimes,  provoked  an  interchange  of  anathemas  between 
Rome  and  Constantinople,  which  armed  Christians 
against  each  other,  inundated  the  porches  and  altars 
of  the  churches  with  human  blood  and  sowed  the  germs 
of  a  hatred  which  still  exists.  When  one  first  begins 
to  think  of  all  this,  one  is  at  a  loss  to  comprehend  it. 
All  the  questions  imaginable  crowd  to  our  lips  and 
then,  if  we  only  reflect  a  little,  the  divine  work  answers 
us  triumphantly.  From  this  little  word,  Filioque 
(which  ought  to  be  written  in  red  letters  in  our  creed), 
and  from  the  struggle  which  it  brought  about,  came  the 
Byzantine  mentality  and  soul,  and  Byzantine  art.  It 
gave  to  Life  more  than  it  ever  cost  Life. 

The  Middle  Ages,  in  spite  of  their  chivalry,  their 
courts  of  love,  their  poetry,  their  viols  and  lutes,  de- 
spised and  detested  woman  and  disfigured  her  beauty. 
They  even  doubted  whether  she  had  been  created  in  the 
image  of  God.  "  Mulier  non  est  facta  ad  imaginem 
Dei."  In  the  fantastical  history  that  is  taught  to  the 
young,  in  the  Perseverance  Catechism  classes,  it  is  said 
that  Paganism  lowered  woman.  I  cannot  forgive 
Christianism  for  slandering  its  predecessor  so  fre- 
quently. It  is  great  enough  itself  to  have  no  need 
of  stooping  to  such  petty  baseness.  Paganism,  on  the 
contrary,  raised  woman  more  than  any  other  religion 
has  done.  It  placed  her  on  its  Olympus,  it  gave  her  an 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE     251 

active  part  in  the  government  of  this  world,  it  built 
altars  to  her,  and  Antiquity  had  its  great  women  just 
as  it  had  its  great  men.  The  list  of  them  is  certainly 
not  as  long,  but  the  very  fact  that  there  could  be  some 
on  the  list,  proves  that  woman  was  not  held  in  low  es- 
teem. Out  of  religious  sentiment  and  out  of  fear  of 
Minerva,  who  must  have  been  a  feminist,  no  one  would 
have  dared  to  speak  disparagingly  of  woman.  The 
wives  and  mothers  of  the  Iliad  are  adorable.  Homer 
speaks  of  them  with  tender  reverence.  Rome  had  her 
vestals  and  her  matrons  and  they  counted  for  something, 
both  in  religious  worship  and  in  society.  The  Chris- 
tianism  of  the  Middle  Ages  was  cruel  towards  woman. 
It  spoke  of  her  as  "  the  sex,"  it  considered  her  as  the 
necessary  sin,  it  made  of  her  religion's  instrument,  the 
husband's  thing.  We  have  only  to  read  what  the  Fa- 
thers of  the  Church  say  of  her  in  order  to  judge  of  her 
condition.  She  is  the  eternal  subject  of  the  coarsest 
jests,  she  provokes  the  uncouth  laugh  of  the  prelate,  the 
monk  and  the  man  of  the  people.  "  Good  or  bad,"  it 
is  said,  "  she  must  be  ruled  with  the  stick."  It  is  said, 
too,  that  she  has  more  fleas  than  man  and  that  she  is 
accustomed  to  killing  lice  with  her  nails.  Pope  Pius 
II,  in  the  midst  of  the  Renaissance,  calls  her  "  a  rav- 
ager  of  youth."  Antiquity  never  spoke  in  so  ugly  a 
way  of  woman. 

The  very  Christian  Middle  Ages  invented  sins  and 
peopled  the  air  with  demons.  They  lived  on  hell  and 
through  hell.  Their  art,  about  which  certain  people 
go  into  ecstasies,  was  cold  and  unnatural.  The  two 
principal  things  "  simplicity  and  light  "  were  unknown 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

to  the  Middle  Ages.  They  drove  away  the  sun.  In 
the  dwellings  of  man,  openings  gave  place  to  loop-holes. 
War  became  more  perfidious  and  hatred  more  lasting 
and  more  treacherous.  Bells  and  churches  called  peo- 
ple to  arms  as  well  as  to  prayer.  Organisations  for 
help  and  relief  were  to  serve  religion ;  humanitarianism 
was  unknown.  By  means  of  feudalism  and  dogma,  the 
free  man  was  fastened  down  materially  and  morally  to 
the  soil.  A  more  painful  and  more  refined  slavery  was 
created  than  the  slavery  of  old,  and  with  all  this  dark- 
ness, the  Middle  Ages  made  light.  That  is  the  mar- 
vellous thing !  They  taught  us  to  read  and  write :  they 
created  schools  and  universities.  They  produced  a 
Charlemagne,  a  Francis  of  Assisi,  a  Giotto,  a  Dante, 
a  Boccaccio.  They  made  the  epopee  of  the  Crusades, 
which  were  to  bring  back  to  the  Western  world  secrets 
of  art,  industry  and  beauty  and  to  open  the  roads  to 
commerce  and  to  explorers.  They  gave  us  chivalry 
and  poetry.  They  bore  along  with  them  the  Renais- 
sance and,  because  of  this,  we  must  forgive  them  all  the 
rest.  I  wish  that  all  my  readers  could  see  the  subtlety 
and  grandeur  of  the  Providential  work  and  admire  it 
with  me. 

After  fourteen  centuries  of  Christianism,  humanity 
was  more  barbarous  than  in  its  early  days.  The  Pope, 
on  reaching  the  throne  of  the  Caesars,  became  "  The 
Prince "  of  Machiavelli's  dream,  the  one  "  who  made 
religion  serve  politics."  In  the  very  Christian  penin- 
sula, abominations  were  committed  everywhere.  Sforza 
"  buries  his  victims  alive,  has  them  cured,  dressed,  their 
faces  painted  and  has  a  gallery  of  them."  A  certain 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE     253 

Count  Anguillara  "  violates  his  own  children  "  and  then 
founds  a  hospital  in  Rome  for  the  poor.  Baccio  de 
Montone  "  beats  the  heads  of  nineteen  monks  on  the 
anvil,  because  they  were  not  of  his  opinion." 

This  was  the  dead  failure  of  Christianism.  It  was 
to  be  saved  by  its  old  enemy  —  Paganism.  Our  lives 
and  the  history  of  this  world  are  woven  of  these  pro- 
found ironies  and,  although  we  are  the  victims  of  them, 
we  must  be  able  to  admire  them.  I  can  still  remember 
the  curious  relief  I  felt,  as  a  girl,  when  our  professor 
of  history  told  us  that  he  had  finished  with  the  Middle 
Ages.  "  Ah,  I  feel  better !  "  I  remarked,  with  a  great 
sigh  of  relief.  As  no  one  had  asked  for  information 
about  my  health,  all  eyes  were  turned  towards  me,  and 
laughs,  that  could  not  be  stifled,  greeted  my  unexpected 
outburst,  whilst  I,  in  great  confusion,  lowered  my  head 
over  my  note-book.  At  present,  I  have  just  the  same 
pleasure  in  seeing  the  god  of  light  appear  again  on  the 
horizon,  in  seeing  Apollo  chase  away  the  darkness  of  the 
Middle  Ages. 

It  would  have  seemed  only  natural  for  Olympus,  Jupi- 
ter, and  Greek  thought  to  have  been  swept  away  by  the 
whirlwind  of  the  centuries.  Statues  and  divinities  were 
lying  buried  under  layers  of  ruins.  Old  manuscripts 
had  been  washed  by  the  monks,  so  that  the  pages  should 
be  clean.  They  were  then  left  in  the  hands  of  the 
ignorant,  which  was  much  worse  than  leaving  them  to 
rats.  And  in  spite  of  all  this,  Antiquity  was  not  dead ; 
fragments  of  its  soul  had  been  incarnated  in  a  multi- 
tude of  brains  and  were  transmitted  to  successive  gen- 
erations, so  that  at  the  hour  willed  by  the  Providence 


254    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

of  God,  it  entered  once  more  into  activity  and  produced 
the  phenomenon  of  humanism.  In  Tuscany,  a  group 
of  individuals  existed  who  had  been  specially  impressed. 
In  the  course  of  their  conversation,  probably,  they 
brought  back  into  the  current  of  Life  great  Thinker* 
who  had  been  forgotten.  Words  arc  living  agents. 
Some  of  them  have  wings,  others  crawl  like  worms. 
What  were  the  words  whose  mission  it  was  to  resurrect 
Homer,  Plato,  Pythagoras  and  to  bring  them  into 
vogue?  This  I  do  not  know,  but  certain  it  is  that  peo- 
ple began  to  read  these  authors,  to  explain  them  and  to 
get  passionately  devoted  to  them.  They  now  roused 
an  enthusiasm  which  they  had  never  before  inspired, 
and  a  new  meaning  was  discovered  in  their  works.  And, 
in  Florence,  a  centre  of  light  was  created,  the  radia- 
tions from  which  were  to  transform  Rome  —  and  even 
the  Church.  This,  too,  is  one  of  the  miracles  of  the 
"  Wonderful  Romance  " ! 

The  man  of  the  fifteenth  century,  a  condensed  product 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  no  longer  adored  the  gods  of 
Olympus,  but  he  revelled  in  the  force,  the  grandeur  and 
the  beauty  of  which  they  are  the  conception  and,  just 
as  though  some  occult  tie  still  existed  between  the  past 
and  the  present,  they  became  dear  and  familiar  to  him 
once  more.  Thanks  to  his  contact  with  them,  he  began 
to  take  Life  in  a  broader  way  and  he  gave  it  in  a 
broader  way,  too,  in  all  his  creations.  His  reading 
caused  a  multitude  of  ideas  to  germinate  in  his  brain ; 
he  felt  the  need  of  communicating  these  ideas  and  so 
academies  were  formed  everywhere.  People  met  to- 
gether to  talk  and  to  argue,  as  in  former  days,  and 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE     255 

they  talked  eagerly,  just  as  dumb  people  might  if 
speech  were  given  to  them  once  more.  It  is  always 
those  whom  we  call  the  dead  who  educate  the  living. 
It  was  they  who  now  taught  the  Romans  their  history, 
who  helped  them  to  make  the  acquaintance  of  the  men 
of  former  days.  They  vibrated,  as  their  fathers  had 
done  before  them,  at  Cicero's  words,  at  the  incomparable 
rhythm  of  his  periods.  They  enjoyed  the  humoristic 
wit  of  Horace,  they  listened  eagerly  to  the  adventures 
of  ^Eneas,  their  ancestor,  as  related  by  Virgil.  This 
Renaissance  transformed  ignorant  rustics  into  learned 
men,  art  collectors,  and  art  patrons.  It  taught  them 
how  to  spend  amassed  wealth  in  a  noble  way.  In  Italy, 
magnificent  palaces  took  the  place  of  the  old  fortified 
dwellings,  and,  for  the  adornment  of  these  palaces,  thou- 
sands of  hands  wove  rich  hangings,  manufactured  fur- 
niture inlaid  with  ivory,  and  chased  gold  and  silver. 
Masters  of  genius  produced  the  marvels  of  sculpture 
and  painting  which  are  the  joy  of  certain  eyes. 

The  Renaissance  did  not  forget  woman.  It  took 
her  into  its  current  and  brought  her  on  to  the  same 
plane  as  man.  It  snatched  her  away  from  the  kitchen, 
from  the  shut  up  room,  where  she  was  spinning  or 
embroidering  with  her  servants.  It  took  off  the  hideous 
head-gear  which  hid  her  hair,  the  guimpes  which  flat- 
tened her  bosom,  "  it  clothed  her  in  soft,  fine  linen,  in 
silk  and  velvet,  which  cost  two  thousand  francs  the 
arm."  Ippolita  Sforza  wore  a  dress  which  was  valued 
at  a  quarter  of  a  million.  It  gave  her  "  boxes  full  of 
pearls  and  of  wonderful  jewels."  Instead  of  the  distaff, 
it  put  into  her  hand  "  a  viol  of  sandal-wood,"  it  made 


256    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

"  golden  needles  for  her  embroidery."  It  taught  her 
all  the  games  of  the  epoch,  it  taught  her  to  sing  and 
to  ride  gracefully.  During  her  long  bondage,  her  long 
silence,  her  chrysalis-like  dream,  woman  had  been  mak- 
ing for  herself  wings,  and  when,  in  the  warm,  Pagan 
light,  she  unfolded  them,  they  were  wonderful  indeed. 
Without  any  apparent  effort,  she  became  the  soul  of 
the  new  society.  Brought  into  contact  with  the  mascu- 
line mind,  she,  too,  became  enthusiastic  with  regard  to 
Greek  and  Latin,  so  that  the  fifteenth  century  had, 
what  the  twentieth  century  has  not,  women  humanists, 
philosophers  and  poets  —  stateswomen  and  great  women. 
The  portraits  of  the  Renaissance  women  tell  a  pathetic 
story  to  those  who  can  read  them.  Their  eyes  have  all 
the  sadness  of  a  sorrowful  past,  they  are  mistrustful, 
the  soul  looks  out  of  them  sideways,  they  have  as  yet 
no  smile.  Leonardo  da  Vinci  must  have  made  hun- 
dreds of  sketches  before  he  found  the  one  that  he  put 
on  the  lips  of  the  Joconda,  and  this  smile  seems  to  say : 
"  I  now  know  my  own  strength  and  your  weakness." 
That  is,  in  my  opinion,  its  meaning. 

The  Renaissance  was  to  do  for  Rome  what  it  had 
done  for  woman.  It  was  to  take  from  it  the  headgear 
with  which  the  Middle  Ages  had  disfigured  it,  and  to 
transform  it  anew.  St.  Peter  had  brought  along  with 
him,  from  Palestine,  the  words  which  were  to  drive  out 
Paganism ;  fourteen  centuries  later,  a  few  Florentines, 
in  search  of  something  to  do,  brought  humanism  there, 
and  this  was  to  bring  back  Paganism.  It  was  all  the 
more  easy  for  it  to  reach  the  Church,  as  it  had  always 
been  cropping  out  there.  Paganism  was  in  its  Basilicas, 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  257 

the  architecture  of  which  recalls  both  the  temple  and 
the  Prastorium ;  it  was  to  be  found  in  its  religious  cere- 
monies, in  its  superstitions.  It  came  to  life  again,  in 
order  to  snatch  the  Church  from  the  barbarity  which 
it  could  no  longer  dominate  and  by  which  it  was  being 
dominated  itself.  And  then,  Paganism  led  the  Church 
along,  in  a  perfidious  way,  to  the  very  edge  of  another 
abyss.  This  was  a  double  revenge  —  and  always  thanks 
to  the  play  of  Life.  The  Popes  became  enthusiastic 
humanists,  they  had  secretaries  who  spoke  and  wrote 
beautiful  Latin.  They  began  to  make  collections  of 
manuscripts  and  of  stone  engravings,  never  suspecting 
the  dangerous  fascination  of  all  this.  With  a  very 
human  inconsequence,  they  set  up  again  the  statues  of 
the  gods  which  had  been  the  horror  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
The  Popes  of  the  Renaissance  are  all  interesting.  They 
show  us  the  most  astonishing  mixtures  of  vices  and  vir- 
tues, which  make  of  them  princes,  tyrants,  humanists, 
patrons  of  art,  skilful  diplomatists  —  uncles  and,  if 
we  are  either  surprised  or  scandalised  at  all  this,  it  must 
be  that  we  know  nothing  of  the  whirl  and  eddy  of  all 
history,  that  we  have  no  conception  of  Life,  and  no 
philosophy  whatever. 

Ever  since  Charlemagne,  France  had  held  suprem- 
acy in  all  that  concerned  Latin  learning  Pius  II  took 
this  supremacy  from  France  and  implanted  in  Rome 
the  invention  of  printing.  He  read  Virgil's  eclogues 
with  more  fervour  than  his  breviary,  and  they  inspired 
him  with  an  admiration  for  Nature.  In  his  native  town 
of  Pienza,  he  built  himself  a  rustic  palace  with  pilasters, 
facing  that  Mount  Amiata,  that  extinct  volcano,  the  sad- 


258    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

ness  of  which  he  had  loved  in  his  childhood.  In  Rome, 
he  gave  his  audiences  on  the  lawn  of  one  of  his  country 
villas.  All  this  is  like  a  gleam  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. 

Paganism  intoxicated  the  pilots  of  the  Christian 
barque  with  antique  beauty  and  with  wild  ambitions. 
The  Church  only  thought  now  of  establishing  its  po- 
litical pre-eminence  firmly,  as  it  had  established  its 
dogmatic  pre-eminence.  It  had  an  army,  artillery, 
mercenaries,  condottieri  who  wore  hats  of  the  same 
shapes  as  those  of  the  cardinals.  It  had  its  spies,  too, 
and  it  had  the  Inquisition  —  an  invention  of  the  monks. 

The  Pontifical  Court  must  needs  be  equal  to  any  of 
the  other  Italian  Courts,  with  regard  to  luxury.  This 
was  necessary  in  order  to  maintain  its  prestige  in  the 
eyes  of  the  humble,  as  well  as  in  the  eyes  of  the  great. 
The  vicars  of  Jesus  Christ  were  now  clothed  in  the 
richest  stuffs,  "  they  had  jewels  like  women,  tiaras, 
mitres,  croziers  of  fabulous  price;  rings,  crosses,  chap- 
lets  set  with  the  most  precious  gems."  They  were 
childishly  inconsequent.  Paul  II,  the  handsome  Vene- 
tian, "  II  formoso,"  gave  the  red  robe  to  the  Cardinals 
and  the  gualdrape,  of  the  same  colour,  to  their  horses. 
The  altars  were  resplendent  with  the  glitter  of  the  gold 
and  silversmith's  work,  the  vestries  were  arranged  for 
storing  treasures  and,  what  is  well  worth  noting,  the 
Christian  religion,  like  the  Pagan  religion  of  former 
times,  was  no  longer  anything  but  a  pompous  worship. 

The  Popes  of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries 
had  a  brilliant  court,  flatterers,  parasites,  but  they  were 
isolated  and  surrounded  by  enemies.  A  very  natural 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  259 

instinct  prompted  them  to  seek  the  protection  of  their 
own  families.  When  they  had  nephews  or  sons,  which 
was  often  the  case  in  those  times,  they  cut  clothes  for 
them  out  of  St.  Peter's  robe,  out  of  his  sacred  and  holy 
patrimony,  a  precedent  that  Italy  might  have  invoked. 
These  Uncle-Popes  raised  their  families  to  the  nobility, 
thus  giving  themselves  princes  and  dukes  for  relatives, 
which  was  a  very  ingenious  way  of  raising  themselves 
to  the  nobility.  They  created  a  new  aristocracy  in 
this  way  which,  foreign  though  it  was  to  Rome,  estab- 
lished itself  there  and  eclipsed  the  aboriginal  nobility, 
the  Colonnas,  the  Orsinis,  the  Caetaris,  etc.  Thanks 
to  these  Popes,  we  have  the  fine  palaces  of  the  Renais- 
sance and  their  wonderful  collections.  Every  one 
should  see  the  portrait  of  Innocent  X,  by  Velasquez,  in 
the  Dorian  Gallery  of  Rome.  In  my  opinion,  it  is  the 
finest  portrait  that  has  ever  been  painted.  The  face 
is  ugly  and  vulgar,  it  is  the  face  of  a  miser,  of  a  money- 
lender even,  but  in  those  eyes  of  metallic  blue,  eyes  in 
which  the  soul  is  so  living  that  it  holds  you  there  for 
a  long  time,  there  is  a  poignant  sadness,  the  sadness  of 
disillusion,  the  knowledge  of  the  ingratitude  of  his  own 
family.  It  is,  perhaps,  the  first  time  that  such  grief 
has  been  caught  and  rendered  so  perfectly.  At  certain 
moments,  all  the  Uncle-Popes  must  have  had  that  ex- 
pression in  their  eyes.  Peace  be  with  the  Uncle-Popes ! 
In  order  to  keep  up  the  pontifical  magnificence  of 
the  epoch,  money  was  necessary,  and  very  much  money. 
This  had  to  be  procured,  and  so  money  was  made  out 
of  everything.  Impositions  were  levied,  prebends  were 
sold  and  money  was  even  made  out  of  St.  Peter's  throne, 


260    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

which  Innocent  VIII  bought.  Absolution  was  sold  and 
so  much  was  paid  for  adultery,  so  much  for  homicide 
and  so  much  for  parricide.  "  The  Curia,"  it  appeared, 
"  was  the  receptacle  of  avarice,  of  lust  and  of  hypoc- 
risy." The  celebrated  humanist,  Lorenzo  Valla,  said: 
"  There  is  no  longer  any  religion,  there  is  no  longer 
any  fear  of  God  and,  what  is  horrible  to  relate  is  that, 
the  godless  ones  give  the  Pope's  example  as  an  excuse 
for  all  their  crimes." 

The  Church,  like  the  Empire  before  it,  was  on  its 
way  to  the  abyss.  Pope  Alexander  VI,  who  cnme  of 
a  family  of  Spanish  adventurers,  had  three  illegitimate 
children.  The  Borgo,  where  he  dwelt  with  them,  had 
become  such  a  place  of  abominations  that  it  seemed  as 
though  the  soul  of  Nero  had  once  more  taken  posses- 
sion of  it.  And  nevertheless  this  Pope,  who  was  as 
corrupt  as  the  worst  of  the  Emperors,  governed  all  the 
Christian  world.  He  was  powerful  enough  to  be  able 
to  give  to  Spain  and  Portugal,  "  de  motu  proprio," 
"  discovered  and  undiscovered  lands." 

The  Church,  at  enormous  cost,  built  the  temple  which 
was  to  incarnate  its  dream  of  Universal  domination, 
and  this  temple  was  destined  to  take  such  domination 
away  from  the  Church  forever.  Was  I  not  right  in 
saying  that  it,  like  us,  is  the  plaything  of  Life?  For 
this  temple,  which  was  to  draw  to  it  all  Christianity, 
the  Popes  asked  for  beauty  of  every  kind.  Thanks  to 
sin-money,  they  were  able  to  call  architects,  sculptors, 
painters,  mosaicists,  goldsmiths  and  gilders  to  Rome. 
Multitudes  of  brains  began  to  work  and  marvellous 
things  were  created.  The  foundations  of  the  Basilica 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  261 

were  soon  visible,  the  walls  rose  and,  finally,  the  dome 
of  Bramanta  and  Michael  Angelo  stood  out  like  a 
labarum  against  the  sky  of  the  Holy  City.  The  Ren- 
aissance put  its  seal  on  the  splendid  Basilica.  We  are 
reminded  of  Jupiter's  loves,  by  the  bronze  castings  of 
the  principal  door,  representing  Europa  on  the  bull, 
Ganymede  carried  away  by  the  eagle,  and  Leda  with 
the  swan.  At  the  very  entrance  to  the  Christian  sanc- 
tuary, it  is  Paganism  which  welcomes  us.  Had  it  not 
this  right?  To  those  who  can  read  symbols,  this  one 
is  a  revelation. 

And  quite  close  to  this  new  St.  Peter's,  the  fortress 
Palace,  built  by  Nicholas  V  gradually  became  more  rich 
and  more  ornate;  rooms  and  niches  were  prepared  in 
which  to  place  the  Olympian  gods,  that  were  taken  out 
of  the  dust  and  brought  thither  at  great  cost.  The 
gods  from  Olympus  in  the  dwelling  of  the  Vicar  of 
Jesus  Christ!  Is  that  not  fine?  When  I  discovered 
the  bust  of  my  beloved  Zeus  there,  that  figure  so  ex- 
pressive of  strength  and  kindliness,  I  felt  a  curious  joy, 
and  I  smiled  mischievously.  At  present,  as  a  novelist, 
I  admire  all  this. 

Such  magnificence  cost  enormous  sums  of  money  and 
the  inconsequent  Church  was  indiscreet  enough  to  make 
use  of  St.  Peter's  keys.  It  put  Paradise  as  the  prime 
to  win,  and,  as  sins  and  crimes  had  never  been  so  numer- 
ous, indulgences  sold  well  —  they  were  sold  too  well  and 
too  openly. 

Humanism,  science  and  art  had  improved  the  human 
mind,  so  that  it  was  now  ripe  for  examining  things 
freely.  The  individual  now  came  out  of  the  mass. 


262          THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

Luther,  Calvin  and  Zwingli,  who  were,  perhaps,  quite 
sincerely  indignant  at  this  traffic  in  divine  forgiveness, 
brought  about  that  religious  revolution  which  has  been 
called  the  Reformation  and  which,  in  its  turn,  was  to 
engender  Protestantism.  Protestantism  was,  and  still 
is,  the  intellectual  and  moral  counterpoise  destined  to 
maintain  equilibrium  in  the  Western  soul.  The  Roman 
Catholic  Church,  therefore,  lost  the  most  cultivated  na- 
tions of  Europe.  There  was  to  be  not  only  a  Chris- 
tianism,  but  a  Lutheran  Christianism  and  a  Calvinistic 
Christianism  and  each  of  these  was  to  engender  other 
varieties.  And  there  was  to  be  a  Protestant  soul,  a 
Protestant  mentality  and  a  Protestant  art.  And  there 
were  also  to  be  religious  wars,  brothers  who  were  to  be 
enemies.  The  human  struggle  was  to  be  intensified  and 
on  our  planet  there  was  to  be  more  suffering,  more 
bloodshed,  there  were  to  be  more  tears.  There  was  to 
be  more  Life,  too,  and  of  a  superior  essence.  There 
was  a  reason  for  all  this,  since  all  this  took  place. 

The  shock  of  this  revolution  roused  the  Catholic 
Church  from  the  state  into  which  it  had  fallen.  It 
saw  the  precipice  at  last  and  drew  back.  Hurling 
anathemas  at  Germany,  Geneva  and  England,  it  be- 
gan to  amend  its  ways,  to  discipline  itself,  to  pull  it- 
self together.  It  was  saved  by  the  very  Reformation 
which  had  hoped  to  annihilate  it.  Is  not  this  cruelly 
fine?  Providence,  which  needed  it  for  long  centuries 
yet,  sent  it  the  man  who  was  to  aid  it  in  its  struggles 
against  heresy  and  heretics.  One  morning,  in  the 
Chapel  of  Notre-Dame  of  Montmartre,  in  Paris,  Igna- 
tius Loyola,  a  romantic,  delicate  student,  made  a  vow, 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  263 

together  with  five  of  his  companions,  to  go  to  the  Holy 
Land  and  convert  the  Mussulmans.  It  was  thanks  to 
this  vow,  inspired  perhaps  by  the  atavic  cellules  of  some 
ancestor  who  had  been  a  Crusader,  that  a  militant  or- 
der, that  of  the  Jesuits  sprang  up,  an  order  which  was 
to  serve  the  Papacy  in  a  masterful  manner.  Its  founder 
was  born  about  the  same  time  as  Luther  and  Calvin. 
Luther  was  born  in  1483,  Loyola  in  1491  and  Calvin 
in  1509.  These  three  fateful  dates  show  that  the  gods 
not  only  create  the  struggle,  but  that  they  direct  it. 
In  the  sixteenth  century,  this  struggle  became  intense. 
Paul  III,  like  a  skilful  general,  gave  to  the  Church 
the  unity  which  it  lacked.  He  called  together  the  fa- 
mous (Ecumenic  Council  of  Trent.  This  Council,  with- 
out taking  into  account  the  discoveries  of  science,  the 
inevitable  law  of  progress,  stopped  human  thought,  like 
a  clock,  at  the  date  of  1545.  It  decreed  the  celibacy 
of  priests,  it  reorganised  the  discipline  of  the  Church 
and  its  hierarchy,  and  gave  absolute  authority  to  the 
Popes.  It  made  use  of  the  spiritual  forces  that  the 
Church  had  neglec^d.  In  the  Middle  Ages,  the  con- 
fessional did  not  ey*lst,  only  the  deadly  sins  were,  as  a 
rule,  confessed.  The  Church  now  formally  inaugurated 
the  confessional  boxes;  it  encouraged  the  human  soul, 
absolved,  comforted  and  guided  it,  not  always  heaven- 
wards, but  more  often  towards  the  political  end  it  had 
itself  in  view.  By  means  of  this  brilliantly  thought  out 
institution,  the  Church  was  able  to  penetrate  into  the 
family,  into  conjugal  privacy,  and  to  hold  in  subjection 
the  consciences  of  its  followers.  By  means  of  the  In- 
quisition and  the  Papal  Index,  it  cut  the  wings  of 


264          THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

Thought.  When  an  individual  rose  above  the  masses, 
it  brought  him  down  to  that  level,  the  low-water  mark 
of  which  it  regulated,  or  else  it  did  away  with  him. 
The  humanists,  the  learned  men  and  the  artists,  all 
those  creatures  of  light,  had  made  of  Rome  a  free,  open 
city,  where  one  was  glad  to  live  and  to  let  live.  The 
Church  closed  it  again  for  many  centuries,  surrounded 
it  with  a  sacerdotal  wall,  the  most  Chinese  of  all  walls, 
at  the  foot  of  which,  waves  and  waves  of  ideas  dashed 
and  then  broke.  Theocratic  tyranny  paralysed  all  will, 
destroyed  valuable  energy  and  caused  the  movement  of 
civilisation  to  be  much  more  slow.  The  Popes  were 
now  kings!  Among  these  King-Popes,  were  some  who 
were  ferociously  cruel  to  the  heretic  brothers.  Pius 
IV  and  Pius  V  were  among  these  Popes.  There  were 
others  who  were  very  remarkable,  such,  for  instance,  as 
Sixtus  Quintus,  the  shepherd  who  had  never  been  able 
to  lead  his  flock  of  four-footed  sheep,  but  whom  Provi- 
dence transformed  into  an  admirable  shepherd  of  men. 
There  were  King-Popes  who  were  nf  My  unselfish.  Clem- 
ent IX  took  spiritual  and  mate/al  help  to  the  sick 
in  the  hospitals,  and  had  twelve  p*or  people  every  day 
at  his  own  table.  When  the  famous  Palarina,  the  bell 
of  the  Capitol  which  announced  the  death  of  the  sov- 
ereign Pontiffs,  tolled  for  him,  it  made  all  hearts  sor- 
rowful. This  was  rare,  for  the  Romans  never  loved 
their  Popes. 

For  centuries  the  Church  continued  its  dream  of 
temporal  sovereignty,  using  all  the  means  that  its  policy 
approved  and  that  Christianism  disapproved.  It  de- 
fended the  peninsula  against  the  barbarians,  against 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  265 

Germany,  against  France,  against  Spain,  against  Eng- 
land. All  this  time  it  thought  it  was  working  for  itself, 
and  it  was  working  —  for  the  Italians,  who  did  not  yet 
exist  as  a  nation.  The  Catholic  Church  was  to  keep 
Rome  for  Rome.  Is  not  that  fine? 

At  present,  the  Popes  only  possess  the  Borgo,  a  space 
of  land  between  Mont  Mario  and  the  Janicula  which, 
curiously  enough,  was  never  a  part  of  Rome.  In  olden 
times  it  was  "  the  field  of  the  oracles."  When  Leo  IV 
surrounded  it  with  walls,  in  the  fourth  century,  he  little 
thought  that  he  was  preparing  a  citadel  for  a  far-off 
successor  —  but  the  gods  knew.  The  Pope  is  no  longer 
king,  and  he  has  never  been  so  much  respected  and  so 
worthy  of  respect.  He  has  never  been  so  great,  for  his 
kingdom  is  no  longer  of  this  world. 

The  Roman  Catholic  Church  is  now  living  the  down- 
ward branch  of  its  parabola,  and  it  will,  no  doubt,  live 
it  for  a  long  time  yet.  If  I  am  not  mistaken,  it  is  at  the 
same  phase  as  Paganism  after  the  Augustan  century. 
Animals,  prepared  for  the  altars,  did  not  find  many  cus- 
tomers. Sin-money,  if  not  sin,  was  getting  rare.  In 
the  upper  classes,  people  believed  very  little  in  the  im- 
mortality of  the  soul,  or  in  hell,  and  the  source  of  artis- 
tic inspiration  from  Olympus,  was  dried  up  forever. 

At  present,  Catholic  priests  complain  that  their  per- 
quisites, and  this  means  the  money  for  masses,  are 
greatly  on  the  decrease.  There  are  fewer  and  fewer 
men  in  the  churches,  and  when  they  do  go  they  look 
like  little  boys  fulfilling  some  necessary  duty.  They 
no  longer  have  the  frank  and  manly  attitude  which 
comes  from  sincere  conviction.  In  their  attitude,  in 


266    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

the  way  they  hold  their  heads,  in  their  Tcry  shoulders, 
an  absence  of  sincere  conviction  is  evident.  Religion 
is  handed  over  to  women  and  children  and,  what  is  still 
more  grave,  beauty  has  deserted  it.  Its  art  consists 
of  Epinal  pictures  and  images.  Does  this  mean  death? 
No,  forms  of  worship  and  sects  may  die,  but  great  re- 
ligions evolve.  This  is  what  Catholicism  will  do. 

Terrestrians,  the  mass  of  them,  at  any  rate,  like  the 
symbolical  Buddha,  with  lowered  eyes,  have  not  yet 
looked  at  anything  but  their  navel.  They  have  evi- 
dently found  that  interesting,  since  it  has  sufficed  for 
them  for  so  many  centuries,  but  they  are  now  endeav- 
ouring to  escape  from  its  primitive  fascination.  Their 
subjective  conception  of  the  God-Man  is  still  childish. 
They  are  looking  for  him  in  the  Beyond  of  their  dreams, 
of  their  poor  dreams.  Their  vision  and  their  compre- 
hension are,  no  doubt,  too  feeble  for  them  to  be  able  to 
read  that  Bible  of  Nature  into  which  he  poured  out  for 
them,  in  streams,  the  hope  of  immortality,  that  Bible  in 
which  each  of  his  thoughts,  in  the  form  of  a  creation, 
reaches  them  liznng  through  numberless  hierarchies. 
The  priests  of  Science  have  been  occupied  for  a  long 
time,  though,  in  inventing  instruments  with  which  men 
can  decipher  the  divine  manuscripts  and  learn  at  last 
to  know  the  God  of  the  Universe. 

I  possess  a  tiny  microscope,  in  which  I  have  seen  won- 
ders that  have  brought  delicious  tears  to  my  eyes.  One 
day,  I  showed  a  drop  of  water  to  the  chambermaid  of 
my  hotel.  When  she  saw  it  inhabited  and  swarming, 
she  was  seized  with  admiration  mingled  with  awe.  She 
asked  my  permission  to  fetch  her  husband  to  see  it,  and 


267 

he  was  much  more  moved  by  it  than  she  had  been.  His 
big  fingers  trembled  with  emotion.  "  That  gives  a  won- 
derful idea  of  God,"  he  said.  "  If  we  only  knew  things, 
we  should  not  go  about  cursing  and  swearing,  but  we 
don't  know,  and  we  are  brought  up  like  animals."  He 
was  quite  right,  "  we  do  not  know  things."  In  our 
churches  there  might  very  well  be  an  altar  to  the 
"  Unknown  God,"  as  there  was  at  Athens.  It  is  this 
God  who  will  reveal  religious  evolution  to  us,  and  it 
was  only  to  take  place  through  Roman  Catholic  Chris- 
tianism.  Curiously  enough,  this  idea  came  to  me  one 
Sunday,  about  three  years  ago  in  Milan  Cathedral, 
during  High  Mass.  At  the  altar,  which  is  very  high, 
a  priest,  in  rich,  sacerdotal  vestments,  dominated  the 
kneeling  believers.  A  ray  of  sunshine,  which  poured 
in  through  one  of  the  stained  glass  windows  of  the 
choir,  dyed,  with  hyacinth  shades,  the  bluish  convo- 
lutions of  the  incense.  Above  this  cloud,  so  wonder- 
fully coloured  with  rainbow  tints,  I  saw  the  officiating 
priest  raise  the  golden  vessel,  in  which,  under  the  ap- 
pearance of  bread  and  wine,  humanity  and  divinity 
mingled.  With  the  most  perfect  harmony,  the  organ 
accompanied  the  words  of  the  oblation.  For  the  first 
time,  and  I  am  not  proud  of  this  confession,  I  was  con- 
scious of  the  symbolical  grandeur  of  the  Mass,  which, 
from  my  very  childhood,  had  always  bored  me  intensely. 
From  the  altar,  my  eyes  travelled  to  the  assembled 
crowd.  The  people  were  all  kneeling  pele-mele,  on 
chairs,  or  on  the  marble  floor,  the  woman  of  the  people 
side  by  side  with  the  wealthy  citizen,  and  the  beggar- 
woman  by  the  side  of  the  great  lady,  in  an  equality, 


268    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

which  had  not  been  arranged,  but  was  absolutely  natu- 
ral. I  realised  then  that  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
is  the  only  place  on  earth  in  which  one  could  have  that 
sensation  of  fraternal  equality.  I  said  to  myself  that, 
after  all,  Christ  had  never  left  Peter's  barque,  and  that 
it  was  there  that  the  evolution  of  all  Christianism  was 
evidently  to  take  place.  I  had  already  started  on  my 
cruise  round  Life,  but  I  did  not  know  then  that  the 
psychical  currents  would  ever  urge  my  barque  on 
towards  this  reef  of  religion  and  yet,  "  li  per  li,"  as 
the  Italians  say,  my  cerebral  cellules  had  commenced, 
instantaneously,  to  weave  a  dream  of  religious  evolu- 
tion. And  this  dream  continued.  I  left  it  hundreds  of 
times  and  then  I  took  it  up  again,  just  as  one  might  do 
with  a  piece  of  embroidery  and  now  it  is  to  serve.  Is 
not  all  this  wonderful? 

I  have  imagined  the  coming  of  that  Pope,  who  will 
also  be  a  Reformer,  that  Pope  whom  all  Catholic  Chris- 
tian thinkers  are  awaiting  like  another  Messiah,  the 
Pope  who  will  say  courageously  and  honestly :  "  Yes, 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church  has  a  number  of  black  pages 
in  its  history,  a  number  of  sanguinary  pages,  of  shame- 
ful pages,  but  it  also  has  some  luminous  and  glorious 
ones.  And  these  pages,  all  of  which  contain  germs  of 
progress  and  of  the  future,  were  written  by  the  Provi- 
dence of  God.  Men  have  lived  them  and  have  made 
them  live.  Yes,  the  Church  has  burnt  living  bodies, 
invented  tortures  by  the  side  of  which  the  crucifixion 
was  a  gentle  one,  it  has  tortured  heretics  whilst  singing 
psalms.  It  dominated  barbarity  by  means  of  a  still 
greater  barbarity.  The  epoch  required  this  homo> 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  269 

opathic  treatment  and  you  have  no  right  to  judge  it 
with  your  present-day  mentality.  The  Church  has 
caused  much  suffering,  but  it  has  given  still  more  conso- 
lation and  joy.  It  has  helped  the  outcasts,  lent  its 
ear  to  their  complaints  in  the  confessional,  softened  the 
anger  of  the  humble  against  the  great,  with  the  hope  of 
future  compensations.  It  has  also  maintained  social 
equilibrium.  It  has  enriched  the  human  soul  with  fresh 
sentiments,  it  has  created  an  ideal  of  psychical  beauty, 
of  purity  which  still  charms  and  touches  you.  Into 
this  gulf  of  twenty  centuries,  which  represents  Chris- 
tianism,  it  has  flung  poetry,  numberless  master-pieces 
and  the  elements  of  your  philosophy  and  modernism. 
The  Roman  Catholic  Church  has  given  you  beliefs, 
which  you  now  reject,  because  you  have  grown  up, 
but  they  liaiue  helped  you  to  grow  up.  These  dogmas 
were  not  untruths,  but  symbols  and  images  which  hid 
the  truth  that  was  too  dazzling  for  your  eyes  as  chil- 
dren. Your  adult  age  asks  for  this  truth  at  present, 
and  the  Church  will  teach  it  to  you."  And  this  Pope 
will  feel  that  the  Church  cannot  allow  itself  to  be  left 
behind  by  Science  in  the  knowledge  of  Divine  work. 
Instead  of  breviaries,  he  will  put  into  the  hands  of  his 
priests  and  monks,  telescopes,  microscopes,  the  instru- 
ments and  all  the  apparatus  necessary  for  the  study 
of  physics  and  chemistry,  so  that  they  may  read  the 
book  of  revelation. 

I  can  imagine,  and  I  envy  the  emotion  of  those  priests 
and  of  those  monks  who  will  see  God,  for  they  will  see 
Him,  in  the  depths  of  the  heavens  and  of  the  ocean,  in 
the  infinitely  great  and  in  the  infinitely  small.  And 


270 

these  priests  and  these  monks,  instead  of  continuing  to 
repeat  theological  mysteries  in  their  pulpits,  and  imag- 
inary miracles  about  which  even  the  most  pious  of  their 
listeners  no  longer  care  to  hear,  will  speak  of  the  mys- 
teries and  miracles  of  Nature,  of  the  sprouting  of  corn, 
of  the  fecundation  of  flowers  and  of  fermentation. 
They  will  unroll  that  magnificent  ladder  of  progression, 
which  all  creatures  are  mounting,  and  which  shows  us 
God  as  the  Conqueror  of  Death.  And  Religion  then, 
born  of  fear,  will  become  love.  And  these  monks  and 
these  priests  will  learn  to  know  man,  no  longer  from  the 
note-books  of  the  seminarist  which  only  contain  his 
dregs,  but  from  Nature,  which  will  reveal  to  them  his 
true  essence.  They  will  then  present  love  and  marriage 
as  the  sacred  rites  of  Life,  and  will  place  them  so  high 
that  they  will  make  pornography  appear  a  blasphemy. 
And  these  priests  and  these  monks  will  preach  moral 
and  physical  cleanliness,  heroism,  patriotism,  the  small 
and  great  virtues.  They  will  preach  not  only  charity, 
but  a  broad  and  profound  humanitarianism,  which  is 
to  be  extended  to  all  beings,  to  the  animal  as  to  a  lesser 
brother.  And  under  their  inspiration,  magnificent  tem- 
ples will  be  built  to  the  Master  of  the  Universe.  Their 
altars  and  their  tabernacles  will  be  made  of  the  most 
precious  materials.  They  will  be  decorated  with  the 
humblest  and  the  rarest  of  plants,  with  master-pieces  of 
Nature  and  of  Art.  The  most  delicate  incense  and  the 
purest  wax  will  be  burnt  there.  The  most  beautiful 
hymns  which  have  ever  been  composed  to  the  glory  of 
God  will  be  sung  there  in  chorus.  There  will  be  an- 
cient hymns,  Hebraic  hymns  and  the  Christian  hymns 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  271 

and  canticles.  And  men  will  come  there  in  numbers, 
as  to  a  centre  of  Science  and  Light.  Terrestrians,  no 
matter  to  what  creed  they  belong,  will  be  able  to  go 
there  to  worship  and  to  pray,  for  it  will  no  longer  be 
the  Church  that  excludes,  but  the  open  temple  of  the 
living  God.  The  collection  plate,  which  the  priest  will 
raise  with  a  beautiful  gesture  of  offering  to  God,  will 
have  upon  it  the  widow's  mite  and  the  millionaire's 
cheque,  and  this  will  no  longer  be  sin-money  but  money 
given  out  of  love.  And  from  the  citadel  of  the  Vati- 
can, from  "  the  field  of  the  oracles,"  waves  of  inspira- 
tion will  go  forth,  waves  that  will  have  been  drawn  from 
the  living  sources  of  Nature,  and  they  will  give  us  a 
superb  artistic  revival  and  fresh  master-pieces.  .  .  . 

This  is  my  dream  and  I  am  surprised  myself  at  hav- 
ing dreamed  it.  Will  it  ever  be  realised?  I  am  old 
enough  to  be  a  prophetess  and,  in  the  soul  of  this  Earth, 
there  are  millions  of  dreams  which  want  to  be  written. 

In  the  meantime,  the  evolution  of  Christianism  has 
certainly  commenced.  It  commenced  a  long  time  ago. 
In  the  barbarous  ages,  religion  and  politics  were  one 
thing.  That  was  necessary  for  the  government  of  child 
nations.  Providence  has  separated  them.  The  oper- 
ation was  a  painful  one  for  the  Roman  Catholic  Church, 
but,  now  that  it  is  free  of  its  gangue  it  will  shine  with 
a  purer  brilliancy,  it  will  rise,  it  will  become  more 
spiritualised.  That  will  mean  progress  for  it  and  for 
us. 


272  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

Is  the  Cape  of  Tempests  doubled?  My  barque, 
"  The  Why,"  still  vibrates  with  the  effort  it  has  just 
made  and,  unless  I  am  mistaken,  the  pilot  has  earned 
a  draught  of  champagne. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THESE  are,  in  our  lives  as  Terrestrians,  marvellous 
phenomena  of  which  we  know,  as  yet,  little  else  than 
the  name,  phenomena  which  we  must  learn  to  under- 
stand more  thoroughly.  They  are  well  worth  the  trou- 
ble, I  can  vouch  for  that.  These  phenomena  are:  the 
metaphysical  dream,  faith,  hope,  divine  love  and  prayer. 
I  now  find  myself  in  the  very  midst  of  the  theologal 
virtues.  Nothing  less  than  that !  I  should  have  been 
greatly  surprised  if  any  one  had  ever  told  me  that 
the  day  would  come  when  these  would  interest  me  more 
than  the  virtues  of  love. 

On  seeing  me  touch  upon  such  a  subject,  many  of 
my  readers  will  leave  me.  When  I  was  young,  I  should 
have  done  the  same  in  their  place.  Some  of  them  will 
leave  me,  remembering  how  bored  they  were  in  their 
childhood  by  these  virtues,  which  were  not  understood 
even  by  those  who  taught  them.  Others  will  leave  me 
because,  in  their  opinion,  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
alone  has  the  right  to  teach  and  explain  everything 
concerning  God.  Well,  it  does  not  matter!  Those 
who  have  courage  enough  to  come  with  me  on  my  up- 
ward way  will,  perhaps,  not  regret  this,  as  I  am  going 
to  show  them  that  the  theologal  virtues  are  metaphys- 
ical phenomena  which  are  quite  natural,  and  that  they 
are  produced  by  certain  cellules  of  our  motor  like  all 
our  faculties. 

There  is  such  a  thing  as  the  superhuman,  but  there 

273 


274     THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

is  nothing  supernatural,  and  there  could  not  be  any- 
thing supernatural.  Everything  is  in  Nature,  the  Be- 
yond, the  psychical  world,  God  Himself.  The  Church 
has  always  tried  to  separate  God  from  Nature.  Fancy 
separating  the  Creator  from  His  creation,  from  His 
work,  from  the  forces  that  He  engenders  and  governs! 
The  idea  of  it  seems  foolish.  Was  not  the  Church  in- 
spired when  it  invented  the  supernatural?  It  certainly 
was,  for  this  idea  was  necessary  for  child  nations.  The 
Catholic  Church  can  only  be  justified  to  history,  hu- 
manity and  Life,  thanks  to  determinism,  which  denies 
the  personal  influence  of  man  over  determination,  which 
affirms  that  the  Church,  and  all  Churches,  have  been 
urged  on,  and  are  still  being  urged  on,  like  the  most 
humble  amongst  us,  by  irresistible  motives.  The  Roman 
Catholic  Church  does  not  know  itself,  or  else  it  de- 
ceives us  very  cleverly,  for  it  has  always  been  deter- 
minist. It  is  very  easy  to  see  this  if  we  study  its  work. 
It  even  has  a  little  word,  in  its  theologal  vocabulary, 
which  is  rarely  to  be  met  with  and  which  reveals  a 
great  deal.  It  is  the  word  premotion.  It  means:  "the 
action  of  God  determining  the  will  of  the  creature  to 
act."  Dossuet  was  as  much  a  determinist  as  Diderot 
must  have  been  when  he  said :  *'  The  ball  which  killed 
Turcnne  had  been  founded  in  all  eternity."  That  was 
determinist  literature.  The  Church,  too,  was,  and  still 
is,  an  unconscious  modernist.  By  inspiration,  or,  as  it 
says,  by  revelation,  which  is  really  the  same  thing,  it 
knew  a  quantity  of  Nature's  metaphysical  secrets  be- 
fore Science  did.  By  sifting  what  there  was  in  man, 
the  Church  discovered  the  existence  of  theologal  forces 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE     275 

which  it  put  into  action,  used,  abused,  dominated  in  its 
own  interests  and,  it  is  only  fair  to  add,  in  the  interests 
of  humanity.  If  we  want  justice  ourselves,  we  must 
be  just  to  others. 

Pius  X  himself,  by  doing  away  with  many  of  the 
fetes  which  interrupted  work,  by  ridding  the  Church 
of  the  great  display  necessary  in  former  days,  and  by 
democratising  it,  was,  without  knowing  it,  preparing 
modernism.  This  was  only  as  far  as  discipline  was 
concerned,  of  course.  The  rest  was  to  come  later  on, 
in  its  own  good  time. 

Religious  romanticism  created  the  metaphysical 
dream  and  the  mystical  dream.  This  dream  peopled 
Paradise  and  hell  with  personages  as  fictitious  as  those 
of  literature,  but,  in  spite  of  this,  these  personages  have 
an  existence.  Their  deeds,  which  are  for  the  most  part 
imaginary,  are  helpful  to  Life.  And  this  seems  to  me 
to  be  the  miracle  of  miracles. 

It  may  seem  that  I  use  the  word  dream  very  fre- 
quently and  carelessly.  I  like  the  word,  certainly,  not 
only  for  its  sound,  but  on  account  of  the  immense  thing 
it  represents.  It  is  the  work  of  certain  cellules  which 
manufacture  the  ideal  for  which  we  are  to  live  or  die, 
and  I  feel  this  work  more  and  more  distinctly. 

Protestantism  tempers,  and  frequently  kills,  spiritual 
romanticism.  The  great  religions,  such  as  Buddhism, 
Roman  Catholic  Christianism,  and  Islamism  exalt  this, 
on  the  contrary,  by  means  of  their  mysteries,  their 
ceremonies,  their  ventures  into  the  Beyond.  We  find 
this  in  the  lives  of  the  saints  written  by  the  monks  of 
the  first  centuries.  Their  productions  betray  an  ardent, 


276    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

childish,  perverse  imagination,  or  rather  an  imagina- 
tion perverted  by  the  subjectivity  of  the  man  living 
on  himself  and  not  troubling  about  the  truth  of  things. 
The  Primitives  in  literature  are  much  less  chaste  than 
the  Primitives  in  painting.  Providence  used  this  ele- 
ment for  making  its  priests,  and  its  holy  men  and 
women  who  were  needed  for  charitable  work,  for  pene- 
trating into  the  masses,  for  social  economy,  for  group- 
ing together  beings  who,  alone,  would  have  been  use- 
less. And  Providence  took  back  from  these  individuals 
all  that  it  had  given  them:  country,  home,  family,  in- 
dividuality and  liberty.  It  clothed  them  in  a  special, 
strange  way,  so  that  they  might  be  better  separated 
from  their  fellow-beings.  It  marked  them  with  an  inef- 
faceable seal.  It  made  use  of  their  ambitions,  of  their 
desire  for  wealth,  for  the  benefit  of  the  Order  in  which 
it  had  enrolled  them.  It  obliged  them  to  live  poor  in 
the  midst  of  wealth.  It  killed  more  or  less  rapidly,  and 
never  without  suffering,  the  instincts  which  might  have 
been  hostile  to  its  plan.  It  stopped  the  development 
of  their  intellect,  or  circumscribed  its  activity.  In 
short,  it  made  them  renew  their  very  soul.  It  bound 
them  over  by  vows,  by  a  few  simple  words  of  immense 
import  and,  like  us,  they  were  held  firmly  by  the  In- 
visible. It  is  possible  to  escape  from  a  stone  prison, 
we  cannot  escape  from  the  Invisible.  Providence  some- 
times carved  out  for  them  a  superhuman  task.  It  sent 
them  on  a  mission  to  savages,  to  cannibals.  It  was  as 
though  it  found  an  artist's  pleasure  in  putting  the 
highest  psychical  forces  in  presence  of  the  most  primi- 
tive psychical  forces.  It  sent  them  out,  physically 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  277 

healthy,  to  tend  lepers,  to  die  for  them  and  through 
them.  It  sent  them  out  to  its  convict  prisons,  to  its 
earthly  hells,  to  take  there  the  hope  of  a  better  life. 
And  it  is  with  wonderful  art  that  the  gods  always  ar- 
range these  strange  destinies.  The  currents  which  they 
govern  will  put,  for  instance,  into  a  girl's  brain,  into 
cellules  that  have  been  gradually  prepared  for  this,  the 
leit  motiv  of  a  spiritual  dream,  those  words  put  pur- 
posely, perhaps,  into  the  mouth  of  Christ :  "  He  that 
loveth  father  or  mother  more  than  me  is  not  worthy 
of  me."  And  the  beautiful,  rich,  beloved  girl  loves  this 
jealous  Master.  His  image,  like  a  cinematographic 
vision,  is  formed  at  the  back  of  her  forehead,  it  pene- 
trates her  and  draws  her  along  irresistibly.  She  turns 
away  from  mankind  and  looks  above.  She  sees  herself 
clothed  in  sackcloth,  wearing  the  veil  or  the  nun's  bon- 
net, with  a  halo  of  sanctity  around  her  head.  The  halo 
is  the  secret  ambition  of  those  who  are  interested  in 
metaphysics.  The  girl  likes  to  picture  herself  in  this 
way,  for  vanity  enters  into  everything  and  works  to- 
gether with  everything.  The  social  position  of  a 
saintly  woman  is  not  to  be  despised.  If  the  elected  one 
should  have  the  maternal  instinct,  her  heart  will  open  to 
children,  to  the  sick,  to  the  weak.  If  she  be  a  con- 
queror, she  will  be  ambitious  for  distant  missions,  for 
dangerous  out-posts ;  and  if  she  be  a  grande  amour euse, 
she  will  love  the  cloister  and  will  delight  in  renunciations. 
Pier  prayers  will  become  passionate  colloquies,  not  with 
God,  as  there  are  liberties  one  cannot  take  with  Him, 
but  with  Christ,  with  some  personage  of  the  Beyond  — 
Her  wild  dream  takes  her  to  the  doors  of  a  convent. 


278  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

She  knocks,  the  door  opens  and  closes  behind  her.  Her 
force,  or  her  weakness,  is  then  poured  forth  into  a  com- 
munity, together  with  other  forces  and  other  weak- 
nesses. Some  of  these  women  may  continue  striving 
after  an  ideal  that  they  will  never  reach,  and  they  are 
then  happy  with  a  happiness  which  is  not  of  this  world. 
This  is  the  exception,  and  the  very  rare  exception. 
Others  touch  earth  more  or  less  rapidly  and,  in  some 
cases,  this  touching  earth  is  so  disastrous  that  the  vic- 
tims die  of  it.  As  a  rule,  though,  the  regular,  disci- 
plined life  in  common,  with  its  thousands  of  childish 
preoccupations,  and  the  desire  to  be  approved  by  the 
director,  or  confessor,  who  is  the  shepherd  of  the  flock, 
creates  a  kind  of  state  of  grace.  Providence  chooses  its 
religious  auxiliaries  in  the  humblest,  as  well  as  in  the 
highest  classes  and,  in  the  weaving  of  their  destinies,  it 
proves  itself  an  incomparable  novelist.  Every  church, 
even  the  most  humble  one,  every  monastery)  every  abbey 
is  an  incarnated  dream,  a  human  dream,  dreamed  on  the 
heights  and  ought,  consequently,  to  inspire  the  philoso- 
pher, the  poet  and  the  artist  with  tender  respect. 

Some  years  ago,  I  do  not  remember  how  many,  as  I 
no  longer  count  the  years,  I  visited  the  Convent  of  the 
Carmelites,  at  Tours,  which  had  just  been  evacuated. 
The  big,  hard,  cold  nest  was  empty.  All  the  open 
doors,  as  though  with  the  same  angry  gesture,  seemed 
to  be  saying:  "  Look  and  see  for  yourselves  where  and 
how  we  lived ! "  I  went  f orward  respectfully,  with 
muffled  tread,  towards  the  bare  cells.  There,  within 
that  narrow  space,  delicate  women,  the  majority  of  them 
refined  women,  had  shut  themselves  up,  in  order  to  for- 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE     279 

get  the  world  and  to  win  heaven.  There  they  had  slept, 
prayed,  and  loved  a  mystical  spouse.  Was  this  not 
beautiful,  or  was  it  folly?  It  was,  perhaps,  beautiful 
and  at  the  same  time  folly.  When  I  visited  the  chapel, 
I  pictured  them  there,  at  the  night  service,  chanting  in 
their  dreamy  voices  and,  in  their  sleepiness,  letting  the 
heavy,  black  breviaries  fall  sometimes.  And  as  I  walked 
on  through  the  cloisters,  innumerable  "  Whys  and 
Wherefores "  came  to  my  lips.  In  an  inner  court- 
yard, there  were  a  few  shrubs,  around  which  a  tangle  of 
impoverished  verdure  was  growing.  This  was,  prob- 
ably, all  that  these  Carmelites  had  known  of  Nature. 
On  leaving,  I  turned  round  for  a  last  look.  There  was 
a  softened,  strange  light  of  many  shades  of  grey,  a 
veritable  purgatory  light,  which  seemed  specially  fitting 
for  departed  souls,  or  for  the  great  black  and  white 
birds  which  had  just  been  driven  away  from  their  con- 
vent. From  a  purely  artistic  point  of  view  I  regretted 
the  expulsion.  When  I  was  once  more  out  in  the  sunny 
street,  in  the  vibrating  air,  I  drew  a  long  breath  of  re- 
lief. Formerly  I  should  have  apostrophised  St.  The- 
resa roundly,  but  I  knew  that  she  and  her  sisters  had 
done  nothing  but  live  out  what  had  been  written  for 
them.  She  said  herself :  "  These  houses  of  the  Order, 
which  are  the  houses  of  God,"  and  further  on :  "I  con- 
sider their  affairs  as  God's  affairs  !  " 

Why  did  Providence  shut  up  so  many  human  beings 
in  cloisters?  Why  was  a  seal  put  upon  their  lips? 
Was  it  not,  perhaps,  because  these  extremely  impres- 
sionable creatures  needed  a  superhuman  ideal?  Was  it 
not  that  if  they  had  been  free  to  come  and  go  in  the 


280          THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

world,  they  would  have  been  very  unhappy,  or  they 
would  have  fomented  grave  disorder  there?  Convents 
are  also,  perhaps,  safety  valves.  Since  there  have  been 
fewer  convents,  the  number  of  neurasthenic  persons  has 
considerably  increased  and  "  Homes  of  Rest  "  are  being 
founded  everywhere.  Our  first  idea  was  that  the  dis- 
banding of  the  religious  congregations  had  been  cruelly 
ordained,  for  it  is  always  Providence  who  puts  the 
pick-axe  into  the  hands  of  builders,  destroyers  and  re- 
constructors,  but  the  wind  of  the  evolution  which  has 
swept  over  them  will  prolong  their  existence.  In  the 
struggle  which  all  this  brought  about,  the  useless  ones 
and  the  weak  ones  will  die  out,  but  the  others  will  have 
an  increase  of  life.  This  is  the  eternal  law.  If  some 
of  the  great  religious  Orders  which  were  expelled  are 
necessary  to  the  humanity  of  France,  they  will  be 
brought  back  to  their  houses.  There  will  be  more  wis- 
dom in  future,  on  their  side  and  on  the  side  of  their 
adversaries,  and  this  will  mark  considerable  progress. 
There  was  a  great  amount  of  needless  sentimentality 
on  the  subject  of  the  eviction  of  the  religious  orders. 
If  I  know  anything  of  human  nature,  those  who  were 
evicted  enjoyed  their  persecution.  Judge  for  your- 
selves !  Persecution  in  a  country  of  extreme  civilisa- 
tion, and  in  the  midst  of  the  twentieth  century,  is  by 
no  means  a  commonplace  thing!  Under  the  monk's 
cassock  and  the  nun's  dress,  hearts  must  have  beaten 
with  holy  anger,  and  fits  of  holy  anger  must  seem  good ! 
Some  of  the  priests  and  nuns  will  have  prayed  in  a 
Christian  way  for  their  persecutors  and  will  have  felt 
their  halos  becoming  more  luminous.  That,  too,  could 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE     281 

not  have  been  disagreeable.  And  then  what  proofs  of 
esteem,  of  affection  and  of  gratitude  they  must  have  re- 
ceived! After  all,  the  gods  put  plenty  of  honey  into 
the  cup  of  bitterness  they  were  offering,  and  I  do  not 
blame  them  for  it. 

When  I  was  about  sixteen,  I  was  visiting  some  rela- 
tives who  lived  in  a  town  near  which  was  a  celebrated 
community  of  Trappists.  The  Brother  who  was  en- 
trusted with  the  commercial  transactions  in  the  town, 
brought  butter,  eggs,  vegetables  and  fruit,  every  week, 
to  the  house  at  which  I  was  staying.  He  liked  talking 
and  was  delighted  to  take  a  cup  of  black  coffee  with 
us.  He  was  a  man  of  about  forty,  tall,  with  beautiful 
eyes,  as  brown  as  his  garments,  a  nose  like  Don  Quix- 
ote's and  a  large  mouth,  ever  ready  for  smiles  and 
gaiety.  Under  his  monk's  garb,  he  appeared  to  be  a 
gentleman.  It  was  very  evident  that  he  was  not  accus- 
tomed, like  the  Brother  who  accompanied  him,  to  carry 
baskets.  In  a  brusque,  awkward  manner,  he  would  put 
the  handle  on  his  arm  and  then,  as  though  it  incon- 
venienced him,  pass  it  on  to  the  other  arm,  and,  very 
soon  afterwards,  change  arms  again.  This  was  irre- 
sistibly droll  and  it  amused  me  immensely.  One  day,  I 
was  daring  enough  to  ask  him  how  he  had  come  to  be  a 
Trappist?  My  question,  put  in  this  way,  seemed  less 
indiscreet.  He  looked  down  for  a  moment,  as  though 
deliberating  whether  to  satisfy  my  curiosity  and  then, 
looking  up  again,  he  said  with  a  smile :  "  You  see, 
Mademoiselle,  I  belong  to  a  large  family,  every  member 
of  which  is  over  head  and  ears  in  the  business  or  the 
pleasures  of  this  world.  I  read  one  day  that  it  was 


282 

necessary  for  one  to  sacrifice  himself  for  all,  and  so  I 
left  the  regiment  of  cuirassiers,  in  which  I  was  a  lieu- 
tenant, and  I  came  to  the  Trappe  to  pray  and  work. 
Six  months  ago,  when  the  Emperor  paid  us  a  visit,  I 
asked  to  be  allowed  to  serve  at  table  just  to  see  whether 
he  would  recognise  me.  He  looked  at  me  several  times, 
as  one  does  when  one  cannot  think  of  the  name  of  a 
person  who  seems  familiar  and  then,  all  at  once,  mine 
came  back  to  him  and  his  surprise  was  very  amusing. 
He  then  talked  to  me  in  the  kindest  way  possible.  He 
asked  whether  I  did  not  find  the  rules  rather  hard.  I 
told  him  that  military  discipline  had  prepared  me  and 
that  I  considered  myself  still  a  soldier,  but  in  another 
Order.  I  must  confess  that  it  was  a  great  pleasure  to 

see  him  again,  and  also  General  F who  was  with 

him,  but  I  felt  no  regret  for  my  former  life.  Last 
week,"  continued  the  monk,  his  face  lighting  up,  "  one 
of  our  Fathers  died.  We  took  it  in  turns,  in  groups, 
to  stay  with  him  day  and  night,  so  that  he  should  have 
us  with  him  to  the  end  of  his  pilgrimage.  He  asked  us 
all  to  forgive  him  and  said,  *  Good-bye,  until  we  meet 
again,'  with  an  accent  of  absolute  conviction.  I  was 
with  him  at  the  very  last.  His  window  was  open  and 
the  singing  of  the  birds  accompanied  the  prayers  for 
the  dying.  He  had  scarcely  passed  away  when  a  huge 
ray  of  the  setting  sun  came  and  made  a  shroud  of  light 
for  him.  This  was  very  beautiful.  An  end  like  that 
is  not  paid  for  too  dearly  by  a  life  of  renunciation.  I 
thought  of  you,  Mademoiselle,"  added  the  worthy 
Brother,  "  and  I  said  to  myself  that  if  you  had  been  a 
witness  of  this,  you  might  have  been  tempted  to  turn 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  283 

Trappist  too." — "  I,  a  Trappist !  "  I  exclaimed  and, 
in  my  insolent  youthfulness,  I  greeted  the  idea  with  a 
burst  of  laughter.  This  Don  Quixotic  monk  was  senti- 
mental and  romantic,  one  of  those  men  whom  women 
only  understand  when  they  do  not  belong  to  them.  On 
thinking  of  him,  I  have  sometimes  said  to  myself  that 
the  Trappe  had  been  his  earthly  salvation  as  well  as 
his  heavenly  one.  And  a  few  words,  flung  by  the  gods 
into  microscopic  cellules,  had  sufficed  for  transforming 
a  cuirassier  into  a  Trappist.  Is  not  that  miraculous 
enough  ? 

One  day,  in  Paris,  I  happened  to  be  crossing  the 
Place  des  Victoires  at  noon.  It  was  just  the  time  when 
those  employed  in  the  banks,  the  workrooms  and  shops 
in  the  neighbourhood  were  leaving  for  their  midday 
meal,  and  the  square  was  filled  with  joyous  uproar. 
From  a  side  street  two  monks,  whom  I  took  to  be  Fran- 
ciscans, emerged.  It  was  just  at  the  swarming-time  of 
the  congregations.  The  two  monks  were  young  and, 
with  their  crown  of  fair  hair  and  their  pink  and  white 
complexions,  they  looked  like  Alsatians.  Their  sack- 
cloth garments,  their  bare  feet  in  sandals  and  they 
themselves  gave  one  the  impression  of  remarkable  clean- 
liness. They  were  each  carrying  a  small  bag,  the  real 
evangelical  bag,  which  no  doubt  contained  their  entire 
worldly  possessions.  On  finding  themselves  in  the  midst 
of  this  noisy  crowd  of  workers  jusi  let  loose,  they  looked 
round  in  rather  a  scared  way.  Their  confusion  in- 
creased when  a  band  of  young  men  and  girls  gathered 
round  them,  and  pretended  to  bar  their  path.  In  a 
gentle,  firm  manner,  but  not  without  turning  very  red, 


284     THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

they  endeavoured  to  make  a  way  for  themselves,  but, 
out  of  pure  mischief,  the  would-be  jokers  gathered  more 
closely  round  them.  A  workman,  in  a  blue  blouse,  who 
had  been  watching  the  little  scene,  called  out  to  them 
roughly :  "  Will  you  stop  it,  you  lot  of  idiots,  and 
leave  the  Brothers  in  peace.  The  street  belongs  to  them 
as  much  as  it  does  to  you.  What  if  they  are  monks? 
That's  what  they  chose  to  be.  It  takes  all  sorts  to 
make  a  world.  If  all  the  men  were  to  have  families, 
there  mightn't  be  enough  to  put  in  the  children's 
mouths."  These  words  of  rough  common  sense  took 
effect  better  than  any  sermon.  The  chain  broke  at  once 
and  the  two  Franciscans  went  on  their  way,  but  not 
without  a  glance  of  gratitude  to  their  defender. 

"  It  takes  all  sorts  to  make  a  world."  And  it  was 
a  man  of  the  people  who  had  discovered  that !  It  was 
he  who  had  had  the  intuition  of  this  fundamental  truth. 
I  fancy  that  if  we  were  capable  of  thoroughly  investi- 
gating it,  it  would  suffice  for  explaining  Life  to  us. 

Monks  and  nuns  were  necessary,  it  appears.  With 
the  exception  of  sectarians  of  narrow  mentality,  we  all 
like  to  come  across  these  living  mysteries  amongst  us. 
We  are  not  sorry  to  have  tcomen  of  the  temple  around 
our  beds  of  suffering  and  misery.  As  they  are  free 
from  all  earthly  cares,  they  have  serene  faces.  Their 
thoughts  soar  above  the  humiliating  horrors  of  sickness 
and  their  soul  is  modulated  by  prayer.  The  sanctuary 
has  made  their  step  light  and,  thanks  to  their  contact 
with  the  various  objects  of  religious  worship,  they  have 
an  exquisitely  light  touch  and  a  kind  of  spiritual  nmg- 
netisin.  These  izomcn  of  the  temple  arc  a  great  luxury 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  285 

even,  that  the  gods  have  prepared  for  our  evil  hours. 
One  day,  at  Florence,  I  was  surprised  to  see  that  my 
host,  who  was  Swiss,  and  a  great  Calvinist,  was  being 
nursed  by  "  a  blue  sister."  "  Ah,  you  see,"  he  said, 
"  for  binding  up  a  gouty  man's  leg,  there  is  no  one 
like  a  Catholic  Sister.  I  know  all  about  that !  If  only 
they  had  a  little  more  science  they  would  be  divine 
nurses."  And  the  man  was  quite  right  in  this. 

A  preacher  once  said  that  "  Philosophy  is  incapable 
of  producing  a  Sister  of  Charity."  Yes,  but  at  the 
same  time,  it  can  tell  us  how  and  why  Providence  made 
them.  And  that  is  certainly  something. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THIS  metaphysical  dream,  which  has  produced  heroes, 
martyrs,  creatures  with  all  kinds  of  hallucinations,  mad 
people,  wise  people  and  invalids,  which,  after  all,  has 
been  extremely  useful  to  Life,  is  nourished  and  fed  by 
hope,  faith,  love  and  prayer.  Faith  and  hope  are  cer- 
tainly the  most  superhuman  and  divine  of  our  faculties, 
for  faculties  they  decidedly  are.  "  Faith,"  according 
to  St.  Paul,  "  is  the  substance  of  things  hoped  for,  the 
evidence  of  things  not  seen."  This  definition,  which  he 
gives  in  one  of  the  Epistles  to  the  Hebrews,  is  abso- 
lutely philosophical  and  scientific.  No  modernist  could 
have  spoken  better.  There  certainly  are,  in  our  motor, 
two  twin  cellules,  those  which  engender  hope  and  faith. 
Hope  is  always  weaving  pictures  of  happiness,  promises 
of  love,  glory,  fortune  and  of  Paradise,  whilst  faith  has 
the  inward  ^is%on.  It  has  never  been  blind  as  it  is  said 
to  be.  It  believes  in  a  good  which  does  not  exist,  which 
will,  perhaps,  never  exist,  and  it  gives  us  the  joy  of  this 
good. 

The  creation  of  these  two  cellules,  or  of  these  two 
groups  of  cellules,  would  suffice  for  proving  to  us  that 
God  has  pity  on  humanity  and  that  He  is  alive  to  its 
sorrows.  "  A  means  of  maintaining  equilibrium,"  the 
sceptics  will  say.  That  may  be,  but  does  not  equi- 
librium mean  health,  peace  and  happiness?  "A  de- 
coy ! "  the  pessimists  will  add.  "  We  have  all  of  us, 

more  or  less,  believed  in  friendship,  love,  fidelity,  and  we 

286 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  287 

have  all  of  us  been  deceived.  We  have  all  of  us,  more 
or  less,  believed  in  victory,  and  we  have  all  been  more 
or  less  vanquished !  " 

Yes,  but  we  have  all  of  us  believed.  Faith  has  stimu- 
lated our  best  cellules,  those  of  will,  courage,  enthusi- 
asm and  we  have  created,  in  this  way,  reserves  of  forces 
which  we  have  found  in  the  days  of  our  trials.  Faith 
produces  a  sort  of  spiritual  warmth  which  has  a  re- 
markable influence  on  the  physique.  The  sick  person 
who  has  faith  in  his  doctor  will  get  well  much  more 
readily  and  more  quickly.  His  presence,  and  even  his 
voice,  will  relieve  the  invalid  in  the  strangest  way;  but 
faith,  like  love,  does  not  come  at  command,  it  is  a  mys- 
tery of  fluids  and  of  affinities. 

Religious  faith  is  still  more  wonderful,  for,  as  St. 
Paul  says,  "  it  is  the  evidence  of  things  not  seen."  He 
means,  of  course,  not  seen  with  the  eyes  of  the  flesh. 
The  priests  of  all  religions,  without  exception,  have 
demonstrated  that  which  they  have  not  seen,  but  with 
which  they  have  been  inspired  and,  by  means  of  sugges- 
tion, they  have  communicated  to  the  mass  of  humanity 
a  reflected  faith.  They  have  inculcated  belief  in  the 
existence  of  God,  in  future  life,  in  punishments,  in  re- 
wards, in  the  dogmas  that  they  have  elaborated,  and 
humanity  has  believed  blindly.  They  have  given  it  the 
Beyond,  they  have  opened  the  doors  of  this  Beyond  and, 
in  all  confidence,  humanity  has  rushed  towards  it  behind 
them,  and  has  placed  all  its  ambitions  and  its  hopes  of 
happiness  on  that  Beyond. 

Theplogal  forces  have  produced  mysticism.  Mysti- 
cism !  Oh,  heavens,  into  what  a  wasps'  nest  I  am  fall- 


288     THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

ing!  I  began  to  think  of  St.  Catherine  of  Sienna  and 
of  St.  Theresa,  of  those  women,  who,  by  the  very  in- 
tensity of  their  desire,  materialised  Christ.  The  word 
materialised  is  the  right  one,  although  it  is  a  term  used 
in  spiritism.  As  I  thought  of  these  women,  I  saw  be- 
fore me  an  abyss  so  deep  that  I  decided  to  pass  on  my 
way,  professedly  out  of  respect  for  the  great  mysteries 
of  Nature.  "  The  Other  One  "  was  not  duped  by  my 
pretty  phrase,  but  brought  me  back  to  the  very  edge 
of  this  abyss  and,  whether  I  would  or  not,  I  had  to  go 
down  into  it.  At  present  I  do  not  regret  this  at  all. 

Mysticism  is  the  belief  or  the  philosophy  which  ad- 
mits the  existence  of  secret  communications  between 
man  and  God.  The  Pagans  were  great  -mystics ;  they 
felt  quite  as  much,  if  not  more  than  Christians,  the 
action  of  the  Divinity  on  all  beings,  and  even  on  all 
things.  They  believed  that  this  action  could  only  work 
by  means  of  Incarnation.  This  seemed  to  them  an  abso- 
lutely natural  phenomenon.  And,  after  all,  is  not  God 
incarnated  in  everything?  This  conviction  was  per- 
petuated in  Roman  Catholic  Christianism.  All  the 
waves  of  human  thoughts  which,  during  centuries,  had 
been  attracted  by  the  Infinite,  produced  Plato,  the 
thinker  who  ascended  the  greatest  number  of  the  Olym- 
pian summits,  whose  philosophy  is  the  highest  expres- 
sion of  the  metaphysical  ideal.  This  ideal  is  the  syn- 
thesis of  Paganism.  The  tree  had  now  given  its  fruit. 
It  was  destined  not  to  die,  for  death  does  not  exist, 
but  to  be  transformed  into  Christianism.  Plato  was  an 
intellectual  mystic  and  an  essentially  Western  mystic. 
Christ,  who  was  to  spiritualise  the  Western  soul,  was 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  289 

an  Oriental  and,  thanks  to  his  Orientalism,  his  religion, 
like  all  the  great  religions,  had  its  "  secret  garden." 
In  this  garden,  Jesus  sowed  simple,  wholesome  flowers, 
of  vivifying  fragrance ;  flowers  of  love,  of  kindness  and 
of  forgiveness.  Then  came  the  Asiatic  monks,  from 
the  barbarous  East,  who  despised  these  humble  plants, 
the  virtues  of  which  had  made  the  first  Christians. 
They  did  not  understand  how  to  tend  these  plants  and 
so  allowed  them  to  degenerate  or  to  perish.  They  then 
scattered  amongst  them  the  seed  of  strange,  complex 
plants  of  poisonous  aspect,  plants  which  intoxicated 
men  by  their  violent  scents  and  which  were  cruel  to  the 
fingers  that  plucked  them.  These  monks  made  of  Ca- 
tholicism a  two-headed  eagle.  There  is  the  Catholicism 
which  I  shall  call  classic  and  secular,  and  then  the 
romantic  and  regular  Catholicism. 

The  classic  and  secular  Catholicism  is  the  one  that 
we  all  know  more  or  less.  It  prescribes  obedience  to  the 
commandments  of  God  and  of  the  Church,  an  absolute 
belief  in  the  dogmas  of  this  religion,  and  the  practice 
of  its  worship.  It  is  simple,  rigid,  almost  mathematical 
in  character.  It  puts  a  little  ideal  into  a  whole  multi- 
tude of  commonplace,  terribly  sordid  lives.  It  colours 
these  lives  by  means  of  the  poetry  of  its  symbols  and  of 
its  ceremonies.  It  gives  traditions  and  an  ecclesiastical 
family  to  those  who  have  not  either,  and  that  is  enor- 
mous !  It  teaches  thousands  of  creatures  to  feel  their 
soul  and  their  conscience,  it  develops  in  them  the  inner 
life.  This  Catholicism  is  that  of  the  great  majority. 

Romantic  and  regular  Catholicism  transports  the  in- 
dividual into  a  more  elevated  metaphysical  zone.  This 


290          THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

is,  fortunately,  the  Catholicism  of  the  few,  for  its 
ecstasies  would  unhinge  too  many  minds.  In  this  zone, 
prayer  becomes  the  orison,  that  is  the  fusion,  the  direct 
colloquy  with  the  Divinity,  and  this  is  only  obtained 
after  more  or  less  long  practice.  Confession,  that  act 
which  answers  to  a  need  of  our  nature  and  which,  in 
itself,  is  wholesome  and  beneficent,  becomes  a  spiritual 
communion,  with  a  director  whose  duty  it  is  to  initiate 
the  penitent  into  the  phenomena  of  mysticism,  to  guide 
him  along  the  paths  which  lead  to  the  "  secret  garden," 
to  the  zone  of  visions,  of  ecstasies,  of  miracles !  There 
are  three  of  these  paths,  it  appears,  each  of  which  leads 
to  the  other  two:  the  purgatorial  path,  the  illuminative 
path  and  the  unitive  path.  In  the  purgatorial  path, 
one  tries,  by  means  of  frequent  fasting,  and  voluntary 
mortifications,  to  get  into  a  state  supposed  to  be  super- 
natural, but  which,  in  reality,  is  only  too  natural. 
After  this,  one  enters  the  illuminative  path  and  feels 
one's  self  penetrated  and  guided  by  a  celestial  light. 
Finally,  one  reaches  the  unitive  path,  where  one  has  the 
sensation  of  the  loving  union  of  the  Creator  with  His 
creature.  This  must  certainly  be  an  extraordinary  sen- 
sation, even  if  only  created  by  the  imagination.  Mil- 
lions of  simple,  pious  Catholics  know  nothing  of  the 
existence  of  this  mysticism,  and  if  they  were  to  know 
of  it,  they  would  consider  it  dangerous  and  immoral. 
There  are,  though,  among  the  extremely  romantic 
Catholics,  a  certain  number  who  are  affiliated  with  the 
Dominicans  and  with  the  Franciscans,  who  follow  as 
closely  as  possible  their  religious  practices,  imitate 
their  austerities,  wear  hair-cloth  under  their  fashion- 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  291 

able  clothes,  discipline  themselves  and  have  a  confessor 
and  a  director.  To  what  degree  of  initiation  do  they 
arrive?  This  I  do  not  know,  but  their  poor  little  flights 
must  be  very  grotesque,  and  yet  they  must  feel  immense 
satisfaction  as  far  as  their  vanity  is  concerned,  for,  in 
Parisian  slang,  "  they  think  they  are  in  it." 

I  have  been  into  this  "  secret  garden."  I  did  not, 
of  course,  go  by  the  usual  paths,  as  they  are  barred  to 
outsiders,  but  I  took  the  path  of  thought.  I  hovered 
for  rather  a  long  time  over  its  enclosure,  I  saw  some  of 
the  great  mystics  and  I  endeavoured  to  surprise  the 
truth.  I  wonder  whether  I  succeeded?  Future  dis- 
coveries will  decide  this. 

For  the  last  two  months,  I  have  had  several  books  on 
my  sofa,  where  I  always  read.  These  books  are:  The 
Life  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi  and  of  St.  Claire,  "  I 
Fioretti  di  Santo  Francesco,"  The  Life  of  St.  Dominic, 
The  Life  of  St.  Catherine  of  Sienna  and  The  Life  of 
St.  Theresa.  I  plunged  into  this  high  flight  literature 
unwillingly,  thinking  that  "  The  Other  One  "  certainly 
makes  me  do  strange  things.  In  a  very  little  time,  I 
began  to  feel  unexpected  pleasure  and,  as  I  read  on,  I 
was  perfectly  delighted. 

In  these  Lives  of  Saints,  published  in  the  orthodox 
precincts  of  St.  Sulpice,  I  felt,  with  private  jubilation, 
the  unconscious  modernism  of  Catholic  thought.  Oh, 
it  is  moving  along,  slowly  perhaps,  like  that  tortoise, 
which  so  humoristically  represents  the  Church  at  the 
feet  of  Christ,  in  the  chancel  of  St.  Paul-beyond-the- 
Walls  at  Rome.  Like  the  tortoise,  though,  it  does 
move.  These  lives  of  the  saints,  in  a  charming  edition 


292  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

with  a  blue  cover,  are  much  better  written  than  such 
books  were  formerly.  One  feels  in  them  a  care  for 
truth,  and  our  twentieth-century  mentality  is  also  re- 
spected. At  the  same  time,  they  are  rigidly  orthodox, 
although  they  do  attribute  to  legend  and  tradition  the 
miracles  that  are  too  barbarous,  such  for  instance  as 
the  gift  of  the  rosary  to  St.  Dominic  by  the  Virgin, 
and  the  Resurrection  of  Napoleon  Orsini,  the  nephew 
of  Cardinal  de  Fossanova.  The  Life  of  St.  Catherine 
of  Sienna,  by  the  Comtesse  de  Flavigny,  published  some 
thirty  years  ago,  was  absolutely  fantastical  and  im- 
probable, and  well  calculated  for  making  the  thinker 
distrustful.  Out  of  loyalty  to  the  Catholic  Church, 
I  refused  to  lend  it  to  a  Protestant  friend  who  asked 
me  for  it.  Those  who  are  interested  in  all  the  mani- 
festations of  Life  will  find  these  mystical  novels,  which 
take  place  in  the  Beyond,  a  thousand  times  more  capti- 
vating than  our  profane  novels. 

I  envied  the  gods,  more  particularly,  the  weaving  of 
the  romance  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi.  This  seems  to  me 
a  beautiful  metaphysical  love  story. 

The  son  of  the  merchant  Bernardone,  known  as 
Brother  Francis,  preached  the  Lent  sermons  of  1212 
in  St.  George's  Church  at  Assisi.  He  was  small,  thin 
and  plain-looking,  but  his  eyes  were  full  of  spiritual 
light  and  his  voice  was  warm.  Instead  of  repeating 
over  and  over  again  the  dogmas  and  praises  of  the 
Church,  he  spoke  of  the  life  of  Nature  and  translated 
this  into  images  which  his  poetical  genius  coloured. 
Among  his  listeners,  was  the  soul  that  was  destined  for 
him,  that  was  to  live  his  dream  with  him  and  collaborate 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  293 

in  his  work  of  reaction;  a  soul  that  had  been,  perhaps, 
known  and  loved  in  a  former  existence,  that  of  Claire 
Scefi,  a  noble,  beautiful,  wealthy  girl,  who  seemed  to 
have  been  created  uniquely  for  a  society  life.  By 
means  of  what  fluids  and  of  what  forces  did  Providence 
unite,  or  reunite,  these  two  beings?  We  cannot  know 
this,  but  it  must  have  been  a  marvellous  piece  of  work. 
The  words  of  Brother  Francis  enlightened  and  pene- 
trated the  girl's  mind.  He  became  her  spiritual  di- 
rector and  I  fancy  that  this  accounted  for  the  "  grand- 
eur, virginity,  gentleness,  perfect  union  with  Jesus,  with 
the  Lady  Poverty." 

He  transmitted  to  her  his  ideal,  fascinated  her  for 
Christ's  sake  and  led  her  on  to  a  mystical  engagement 
with  Christ.  Listen  to  this :  "  One  evening,  towards 
midnight,  she  left  her  father's  palace,  accompanied  by 
a  few  of  her  friends,  and  hastened  to  the  Chapel  of  the 
Portioncule,  where,  three  years  previously,  Francis  had 
celebrated  his  own  union  with  '  Poverty,'  the  widow  of 
Christ!  The  Franciscan  Brothers,  who  were  awaiting 
her,  advanced  to  meet  her,  chanting  as  they  came,  and 
led  her  to  the  altar.  *  My  daughter,  what  do  you 
want  ?  '  asked  the  saint.  '  God,'  answered  the  bride- 
elect,  *  the  god  of  the  manger  and  of  Calvary.'  And 
then,  on  her  knees,  with  bare  feet,  she  laid  down  all  that 
she  had  of  any  value,  silk  garments  and  jewels,  which 
the  Brothers  were  to  distribute  among  the  poor. 
Francis  took  up  the  scissors  and  cut  off  the  girl's  fair 
hair;  he  put  on  her  a  robe  of  ash-grey  colour,  girdled 
with  a  cord,  covered  her  head  with  a  coarse  veil  and  put 
sandals  on  her  feet."  Claire  then  pronounced  the  three 


294          THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

vows  which  put  an  insurmountable  barrier  between  her- 
self and  the  world,  the  evil  and  the  good.  Was  it  not 
the  engagement  of  Claire  and  Francis  that  was  cele- 
brated in  the  Chapel  of  the  Portioncule,  rather  than 
that  of  the  girl  and  Christ?  I  think  so,  and  I  hope  so. 
Under  the  inspiration  of  him  who  had  become  her 
master,  more  than  any  man  has  ever  been  the  master 
of  any  woman,  Claire  founded  the  mendicant  order  of 
the  "  Poor  Ladies."  Francis  established  her  in  the 
poetical  hermitage  of  St.  Damien,  not  far  from  his  own 
convent,  and  insisted  on  strict  seclusion  for  her.  This 
foundation,  which  they  had  organised  together,  must 
have  necessitated  long  and  frequent  conversations  which, 
I  do  not  doubt,  were  a  source  of  superhuman,  but  not 
supernatural,  happiness  to  them  both.  All  through 
this  wonderful  romance,  lived  on  the  metaphysical  plane, 
there  are  adorable  scenes,  scenes  that  are  supremely 
touching  and  dramatic.  Earthly  love,  set  in  spiritual- 
ity as  in  rubies,  shines  there  with  all  the  brilliancy  of 
the  diamond.  Listen  to  this :  "  Claire  had  a  great  de- 
sire to  eat  with  St.  Francis."  How  divinely  human  this 
desire  was !  "  He  refused  her  this  favour  for  a  long 
time  and  he  only  granted  it  at  the  entreaty  of  his  fel- 
low monks."  "  As  you  think  it  should  be  thus,"  says 
St.  Francis,  "  I  agree  with  you,  but,  so  that  her  pleas- 
ure may  be  greater,  I  should  like  the  meal  to  take  place 
here,  at  St.  Mary-of-the-Angels.  Claire  has  been  shut 
up  at  St.  Damien  for  so  long  a  time,  that  she  will  cer- 
tainly rejoice  and  be  strengthened  on  seeing  St.  Mary's 
again,  for  it  was  here  that  we  cut  off  her  hair  and  that 
she  became  the  bride  of  Jesus  Christ.  Therefore,  in 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  295 

the  name  of  God,  it  is  here  that  we  will  eat  together." 
And  they  ate  together,  for  the  first  and  last  time. 
St.  Francis  had  the  repast  prepared  on  the  bare  ground. 
"  As  soon  as  the  first  dish  was  served,  the  saint  began 
to  speak  of  God,  in  so  marvellous  a  way  that  they  felt 
themselves  lost  in  Him."  Was  it  in  Him,  or  in  each 
other  that  they  felt  lost?  That  was  their  secret,  or 
rather  the  secret  of  Providence.  What  pleasure  I 
should  have  had  in  imagining  and  analysing  the  joy  of 
the  poor  recluse  on  feeling  herself  out  in  the  open  air, 
and  on  seeing  once  more  the  Umbrian  country ;  and  her 
emotion  on  finding  herself  once  more  in  the  chapel  where 
she  had  taken  her  vows,  and  on  visiting  the  convent 
where  her  master  lived ! 

During  the  last  years  of  his  life,  St.  Francis  had  cut 
off  all  outward  communication  between  St.  Damien  and 
the  Portioncule.  Perhaps  this  was  because  he  did  not 
feel  his  love  to  be  as  spiritual.  He  said,  one  day,  to 
those  who  were  praising  him  in  an  extravagant  way: 
"  Do  not  praise  me  too  much,  for  I  am  still  capable  of 
having  sons  and  daughters." 

When  Claire  knew  that  Francis  was  mortally  ill,  she 
sent  him  word  that  she  wanted  to  see  him.  He  refused 
to  let  her  come,  but  he  promised  her  that  she  should 
see  him  again.  He  did  not,  perhaps,  wish  her  to  be- 
hold him  in  all  the  ugliness  of  dissolution,  but  in  the 
beauty  of  death  and  that,  too,  was  very  human.  He 
did  receive  the  woman,  though,  whom  he  had  liked  next 
best  to  St.  Claire,  a  Roman  lady,  Jacoba  de  Septem- 
soliis,  whom  he  had  surnamed  his  "  Brother  Jacqueline." 
"  On  hearing  of  the  illness  of  the  saint,  she  had  has- 


296    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

tened  to  him."  No  woman  was  allowed  to  enter  the 
Portioncule,  but  an  exception  was  made  for  the  mas- 
ter's comrade.  She  brought  with  her  the  robe  she  had 
been  weaving  for  him,  the  robe  which  was  to  serve  for 
his  mortuary  garment.  Thanks  to  a  childishness  which 
was  curious  enough,  he  wished  to  have  a  patch  sewn  on 
to  it,  as  he  did  not  think  it  looked  poor  enough.  He 
was  not  ashamed  of  his  disease  before  his  friend, 
"  Brother  Jacqueline,"  who  had  the  privilege  of  tend- 
ing him  during  the  last  week  of  his  life  and  of  keeping 
vigil  over  his  mortal  remains.  What  would  not  the 
poor  Abbess  of  St.  Damien  have  given  for  this  privi- 
lege !  "  In  order  to  keep  the  promise  that  Francis  had 
made,  the  funeral  procession  went  towards  the  town, 
taking  the  road  that  passed  by  St.  Damien.  The  body 
was  carried  into  the  Church  and  placed  so  near  the 
grated  window  of  the  Sisters,  that  they  could  see  their 
spiritual  Father  for  the  last  time.  And  the  Brothers 
took  away  the  grating,  through  which  the  servants  of 
God  were  accustomed  to  receive  the  Sacred  Host,  and 
they  took  the  venerable  body  up  from  the  stretcher  and 
held  it  on  their  arms,  in  front  of  the  window,  as  long 
as  Madame  Claire  and  the  other  Sisters  wished,  for 
their  comfort  and  consolation." 

WTiat  waves  of  sentiment  and  of  spirituality  must 
have  been  the  outcome  of  these  great  scenes  so  admir- 
ably conceived !  I  have  given  them,  because  they  are 
a  revelation  with  regard  to  the  mystic  soul  of  which  we 
know  so  little.  In  taking  them  from  the  history  of 
St.  Francis  and  St.  Claire,  the  inveterate  romance 
writer  that  I  am  has  felt,  in  imagination,  the  joy  and 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE     297 

the  grief  that  were  lived  some  seven  centuries  ago,  and 
that  was  delicious.  These  are  the  miracles  of  God ! 

If  it  had  not  been  for  my  great  desire  to  be  just,  I 
should  not  have  read  the  life  of  St.  Dominic  again.  I 
had  heard  it  read  in  the  convent  refectory,  in  what  I 
call  the  fabulous  days  of  my  youth,  and  I  had  con- 
ceived a  lively  antipathy  for  him.  I  do  not  know 
whether,  in  a  previous  existence,  I  had  belonged  to  the 
Albigenses,  but  the  Dominican  garb  has  always  made 
a  disagreeable  impression  on  me.  Two  years  ago,  in 
Rome,  I  lunched  with  a  Father  from  Aventine,  a  man 
of  great  culture,  not  a  modernist,  but  modern  and  abso- 
lutely charming.  He  was  a  typical  monk  of  the  kind 
that  civilisation  has  made,  and  yet  I  felt  the  strangest 
and  most  ridiculous  embarrassment  all  the  time  I  was 
with  him. 

After  reading  this  life  of  St.  Dominic  again,  my 
feeling  towards  this  saint  of  the  Inquisition  has  not 
changed,  but  I  understand  him  better.  Determinism 
makes  me  pity  those  who  are  doomed  to  cause  suffering 
more  than  those  who  are  doomed  to  suffer.  "  The  life 
of  every  man,"  says  the  Swedish  writer,  Joergensen, 
"  is  merely  the  fruit  of  his  own  will."  That  is  abso- 
lutely true,  but,  as  the  cellules  which  contain  that  will 
are  given  to  him  by  God,  those  particular  cellules  and 
not  any  others,  it  is  always  and  only  the  will  of  God 
that  he  carries  out. 

The  great  mystics  of  the  East  and  of  the  West, 
the  mystics  who  have  had  visions,  the  true  mystics  and 
the  false  ones,  have  all,  whatever  the  priests  may  say, 
been  suffering  from  that  mysterious  disease  which  we 


298    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

call  neurosis.  The  phenomena  of  this  disease  are  so 
strange  that,  in  barbarous  times,  they  were  considered 
supernatural.  In  the  hospitals,  stigmata,  the  odour  of 
sanctity  and  the  bleeding  hands  are  well  known.  At  the 
Salpetriere  Hospital  of  Paris,  apparent  death,  due  to 
catalepsy  can  be  seen,  with  stiffened  limbs  and  knotted 
nerves.  Then  too,  one  sees  fits  of  ecstasy  and  trances, 
when  the  poor  human  faces,  with  their  rapturous  ex- 
pressions, seem  to  have  a  halo  around  them.  Dos- 
toiewski,  the  writer,  was  epileptic,  and  he  declared  that 
just  before  his  attacks  he  used  to  have  the  most  ecstatic 
joy.  The  Middle  Ages  were  the  great  epoch  for  reli- 
gious neurasthenia,  and  that  is  easily  accounted  for. 
The  psychical  currents,  bearing  along  with  them  ideas 
and  images,  were  neither  as  numerous  nor  as  rapid  in 
those  days  as  they  are  at  present.  Mentalities  were  not 
well  ventilated.  For  long  centuries,  Christian  thought 
had  been  fed  solely  on  the  stories  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments,  on  dogmas,  legends,  wonders  and,  above 
all,  on  the  drama  of  the  Passion.  People  almost  fainted 
in  front  of  the  most  lamentable  Christs,  and  these  could 
never  be  sufficiently  agonising.  With  morbid  compas- 
sion, people  counted  his  bones  and  his  wounds.  They 
had  not  tears  enough  for  the  woes  of  the  Virgin  Mary ; 
and  all  this  without  realising  that  they  were  living 
again,  not  the  crucifixion  of  Christ,  but  the  eternal 
crucifixion  of  humanity.  All  grain  heaped  up  spoils, 
and  this  became  tainted  and  the  result  was  —  sick  per- 
sons —  mystics.  In  some  of  their  cerebral  cellules, 
over-saturated  with  religion,  thanks  to  a  kind  of 
spiritual  mirage,  all  the  sacred  personages  appeared  to 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  299 

them.  By  means  of  that  duality  which  idealists  and 
writers  possess,  they  believed  that  they  conversed  with 
them.  Priests  and  monks,  instead  of  trying  to  cure 
them,  kept  up  their  illusionism,  by  means  of  their  own 
dreams,  by  pictures  of  Paradise  and  hell,  by  fabulous 
wonders,  by  miracles  performed,  impossible  to  say  how. 
It  was  thus  that  the  Church,  either  out  of  ignorance 
or  intentionally,  I  hope  out  of  ignorance,  created  the 
mysticism  which  has  been  of  such  service  to  it. 

In  the  case  of  neurasthenic  people  who  were  not  pious, 
but  rather  incredulous,  the  visions  were  anything  but 
religious  ones,  and  it  is  the  same  at  present.  When 
they  were  flung  on  the  ground,  as  though  by  invisible 
hands  and  when,  foaming  at  the  mouth,  they  writhed 
in  horrible  convulsions,  when  they  uttered  blasphemies 
and  filthy  words,  they  were  supposed  to  be  possessed 
by  demons  and,  willingly  or  unwillingly,  they  had  to 
submit  to  exorcism.  There  were  bands  of  exorcists  al- 
ways ready  among  the  clergy,  and  there  was  plenty  of 
work  for  them.  Doctors  ought  to  have  attended  the 
poor  unfortunates  instead  of  these  exorcists. 

I,  too,  from  ignorance  (for  who  has  not  sinned  out 
of  ignorance)  —  I  refused  to  believe  in  the  visions  and 
raptures  of  the  saints.  At  present,  I  believe  most  of 
them  to  have  been  true  and  perfectly  natural.  I  fancy 
that  phenomena  of  this  kind  take  place  in  the  frontal 
lobes,  where  the  metaphysical  and  all  the  other  dreams 
take  place.  When  these  cellules  are  set  going  by  the 
nerves,  that  is  by  conductors  which  are  either  at  too 
great  a  tension,  or  that  are  too  slack,  or  perhaps  even 
knotted,  they  may  produce  all  kinds  of  aberrations. 


300    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

Are  there  not,  in  our  brains,  alvearies  which  distil  the 
intoxication  of  love.  And  it  is  so  certainly  our  motor 
which  is  the  theatre  of  all  this,  that  neither  Christ, 
the  Virgin,  the  Saints,  nor  yet  any  of  the  spirits 
evoked  by  mediums,  have  ever  said  anything  to  reveal 
beings  existing  on  a  higher  plane  than  ours,  or  any 
other  person  than  the  one  who  made  them  talk.  St. 
Dominic  often  slept  in  one  of  the  churches.  It  would 
not,  therefore,  be  surprising  if,  when  at  the  foot  of 
one  of  the  altars  of  the  Virgin,  a  film  should  have  been 
formed  behind  his  forehead  representing  her  with  the 
child  Jesus  offering  her  the  chaplet  with  the  fifteen 
ten  beads,  a  film  which  led  to  the  institution  of  the 
Rosary. 

A  French  writer,  I  believe  it  was  Stendhal,  had  a 
fancy  to  spend  the  night  in  St.  Peter's  of  Rome.  He 
hid  in  a  confessional  box  and  so  got  shut  in  the  Church. 
In  the  morning,  he  was  found  in  a  swoon.  His  nerves 
and  his  imagination  had  not  been  able  to  bear  the  si- 
lence and  mystery  of  the  immense  Basilica.  A  re- 
ligious, neurasthenic  person  would  probably  have  been 
carried  away  to  Paradise  or  to  hell. 

And  these  psychical  phenomena  always  reflect  the 
mentality  of  the  epoch.  Thinkers  may  ruminate  over 
the  fact  that,  in  all  the  visions  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
there  is  blood.  Fortunately  it  was  always  the  blood 
of  Jesus,  otherwise  these  visions  would  have  made  crim- 
inals instead  of  saints.  In  those  barbarous  days, 
women,  during  the  time  of  their  gestation,  must  fre- 
quently have  seen  the  streets  running  with  the  blood 
of  fratricidal  struggles,  and  this  sight  must  have  made 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  301 

its  impression  on  the  fruit  of  their  womb.  It  was  no 
doubt  this  which  tinged  with  red  the  soul  of  the  thir- 
teenth century  mystics,  and  which  made  that  soul  so 
cruel  to  others  and  to  itself.  St.  Dominic  administered 
discipline  to  himself  and  had  himself  beaten  with  triple 
chains  of  iron,  and  we  may  be  sure  that  he  experienced 
a  morbid  j  oy  on  feeling  his  flesh  torn  in  this  way.  This 
makes  me  think  that  there  is  reason  in  accusing  him  of 
having  been  the  inventor  of  the  Inquisition,  the  pred- 
ecessor of  the  famous  terrorist,  Torquemada.  He  was 
a  Spanish  monk,  and  under  the  Spaniard  you  will  find 
the  African  fanatic.  One  feels  this  on  reading  the 
following  lines :  "  Some  heretics  having  been  convicted, 
in  Toulouse,  were  handed  over  to  the  secular  tribunal, 
because  they  refused  to  return  to  the  faith.  Dominic 
looked  at  one  of  them,  with  a  heart  initiated  into  the 
secrets  of  God,  and  said  to  the  officers  of  the  court: 
'  Keep  this  one  apart  and  do  not  burn  him.'  Then, 
turning  towards  the  heretic  with  great  gentleness," 
(Oh,  that  gentleness  so  near  to  the  stake!)  "he  said: 
'  I  know,  my  son,  that  you  will  need  a  long  time,  but 
that  you  will  become  good  and  holy.' "  This  is  rather 
like  a  cannibal  scene,  when  the  chief  of  the  tribe  says 
to  the  executors :  "  Keep  this  one  for  to-morrow,  he 
will  be  better."  The  unfortunate  man  was  kept  — 
twenty  years.  That  was  very  kind,  in  truth.  He  was 
converted  finally  and  not  burnt. 

Vocations  which  have  made  great  mystics  have  al- 
ways declared  themselves  after  an  illness.  This  was 
the  case  with  St.  Francis  of  Assisi.  Unless  reason  be 
only  a  vain  word,  it  is  impossible  to  believe  the  man 


302    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

quite  sane  in  his  mind  who,  in  the  episcopal  palace  of 
Assisi,  "  in  the  presence  of  a  large  assembly,  when 
called  upon  to  return  to  his  father  what  belonged  to 
him,  disappeared  into  an  adjoining  room  and  came  back, 
presently,  completely  naked,  except  for  a  waistband 
of  fur  round  his  loins,  carrying  under  his  arm  all  his 
clothes,  which  he  deposited,  together  with  a  little  pile 
of  gold,  at  his  father's  feet."  Later  on,  he  orders 
Ruffin,  one  of  his  friars,  belonging  to  one  of  the  best 
families  of  Assisi,  to  go,  quite  naked,  from  the  Por- 
tioncule  to  the  town  and  to  preach,  quite  naked,  in 
the  Cathedral.  He  gives  a  similar  order  to  Brother 
Ange.  He,  too,  was  to  go,  quite  naked,  to  the  town 
and  to  announce  that  the  Master  would  arrive  the  fol- 
lowing day  and  intended  to  preach.  Twice,  during  his 
last  illness,  he  asked  to  be  placed,  quite  naked,  on  the 
naked  earth.  This  is  very  much  like  the  fancy  of  a 
neurasthenic  person. 

For  the  last  thirty  years,  whenever  people  of  the 
lower  class  see  any  one  doing  things,  the  strangeness 
of  which  amazes  them,  they  no  longer  say  that  the 
person  is  mad  but,  with  a  shrug  of  the  shoulders  and 
a  note  of  pity  in  the  voice,  they  say  that  this  person  is 
HI.  This  explanation  is  more  correct  and  the  son  of 
Pierre  Bernardone  was  "  ill." 

St.  Dominic  and  St.  Francis  were  enthusiastic  about 
poverty.  The  latter,  who  was  romantic  and  also  a 
poet,  had  the  most  passionate  and  childish  worship  of 
poverty.  How  many  times  I  have  regretted  that  clean- 
liness, divine  cleanliness  was  not  the  object  of  his  wor- 
ship for,  as  the  English  say :  "  Cleanliness  is  next  to 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  SOS 

godliness."  This  would  have  been  so  much  more  whole- 
some, morally  and  physically!  Dirt,  though,  was  to 
serve  also. 

About  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century,  there  was 
a  curious  need  of  suffering,  of  poverty  and  of  humilia- 
tion in  mystic  souls.  This  was,  perhaps,  intended  to 
serve  as  a  counterpoise  to  the  excessive  need  of  enjoy- 
ment, wealth  and  display  which  had  developed  among 
the  upper  clergy.  And,  incredible  though  it  may  seem, 
the  creation  of  the  mendicant  Orders,  feminine  and  mas- 
culine, was  inspired  by  the  same  irresistible  reasons  as 
the  heresy  of  the  Albigenses,  of  the  Catharists  and  of 
the  Vaudois.  These  reasons  were  the  laxity  of  all 
moral  discipline  in  the  Catholic  Church.  These  two 
reactions,  similar  and  diverse,  struggled  ferociously 
with  each  other. 

The  monks,  and  the  poor  women  they  had  seques- 
tered, renounced  the  transmission  of  life,  in  the  hope  of 
acquiring  imperishable  riches.  The  heretics  would  not 
lend  themselves  to  this  transmission  out  of  hatred  to 
Life,  which  they  believed  to  be  the  devil's  work,  since 
they  saw  it  corrupted  by  those  who  ought  to  have  puri- 
fied it.  This,  too,  was  an  ideal  of  sick  people. 

Instead  of  amending  its  own  ways,  the  Church  exer- 
cised, over  these  unfortunate  heretics,  a  more  cruel 
repression  than  any  of  the  persecutions  for  which  it 
thought  it  had  earned  a  crown.  The  death  in  the 
amphitheatre,  ordered  by  the  Pagans,  was  more  prompt 
and  more  merciful  than  the  death  by  torture  in  the 
dungeons  of  the  Inquisition,  invented  by  Christians  — 
for  Christians.  The  institution  of  the  mendicant  Or- 


804    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

ders  was  the  drag  which  was  put  on  the  Church  for 
a  short  time,  for  the  sake  of  stopping  it  on  its  march 
towards  the  abyss,  but  it  started  on  again  soon  and 
God  be  thanked  for  it,  as  this  march  was  to  lead  on 
to  the  Renaissance  and  to  the  Reformation,  its  salva- 
tion and  ours  too.  Catholics  who  do  not  think  do  not 
look  at  things  in  this  way,  but  philosophy  does,  and 
philosophy  is  always  In  agreement  -with  Providence. 

St.  Catherine  of  Sienna,  born  in  the  middle  of  all 
the  horrors  of  civil  war,  and  whose  mother  was  subject 
to  cataleptic  fits,  was  certainly  in  worse  health  than 
any  of  the  other  mystics,  whose  lives  I  have  just  been 
reading.  She  was  above  all  a  grande  amoureuse.  At 
the  age  of  seveji,  she  imagined  that  Christ  had  dictated 
the  following  prayer  to  her:  "Oh,  most  blessed  and 
most  holy  Virgin,  who,  first  among  all  women,  conse- 
crated your  virginity  to  God,  and  by  His  grace  be- 
came the  mother  of  His  son,  I  beseech  you  very  humbly 
not  to  look  at  my  misdeeds  and  at  my  nothingness.  I 
am  a  poor  creature,  but  I  beg  you  to  do  me  the  great 
favour  of  giving  me,  as  a  husband,  your  very  dear 
child  Jesus  Christ,  for  I  love  him  and  desire  him  with 
all  my  heart.  I  promise  you,  and  promise  him  too, 
that  I  will  never  have  another  husband  and  thnt  I  will 
keep  my  virginity  for  him ! "  This  is  so  childish  that 
one  hns  not  even  the  courage  to  laugh  at  it,  but  one 
wonders  what  atavisms  could  have  produced  such  pre- 
cocity? After  such  a  prayer,  it  is  not  surprising  that, 
at  the  age  of  twenty-one,  Catherine  saw  the  ceremony 
of  her  mystic  marriage.  "  In  the  presence  of  St.  John 
the  Evangelist,  of  the  prophet  David,  who  drew  from 


305 

the  harp  strains  of  infinite  sweetness  (so  that  there  was 
even  music)  Mary,  the  Mother,  took  her  right  hand 
and  gave  it  to  her  son.  *  I,  thy  Creator  and  thy 
Saviour,'  said  Christ,  putting  on  the  girl's  finger  a 
ring  that  was  as  strong  as  the  diamond,  as  pure  as  the 
wave  and  as  dazzling  as  flame,  *  I  wed  thee  in  the  faith ; 
I  will  protect  thy  faith  from  all  violation  and,  armed 
with  this  force,  thou  shalt  conquer  the  world  until  the 
day  when,  in  Paradise,  thou  shalt  celebrate  with  me, 
thy  eternal  marriage.' '  This  was,  in  truth,  the  most 
morganatic  of  all  marriages.  Was  this  story  of  the 
apparition  an  untruth?  Not  at  all.  It  was  merely  a 
phenomenon  produced  by  the  imagination.  The  un- 
fortunate, or  the  blessed,  St.  Catherine  had  entered  the 
"  secret  garden."  She  had  undoubtedly  climbed  up 
the  purgatorial  road,  passed  along  the  illuminative 
road  and  the  unitive  road  of  initiation.  This  alarming 
spiritual  gymnastic  exercise,  the  play  of  theologal 
forces  set  in  movement  by  intense  desire,  might  quite 
well  have  created  within  her  the  film  of  the  mystical 
marriage.  She  had  no  doubt  believed  it  to  be  real, 
and  she  had  felt  the  ring,  which  was  only  visible  to  her- 
self, on  her  finger,  "  the  ring  strong  as  the  diamond,  as 
pure  as  the  wave  and  as  dazzling  as  flame."  She  saw 
it  disappear,  no  doubt,  when  she  was  tempted  to  dis- 
obey or  sin. 

In  no  other  saint's  visions  was  there  as  much  blood 
as  in  those  of  St.  Catherine,  and  this,  as  I  have  said, 
was  a  reflection  of  the  epoch.  It  was  the  blood  of 
Jesus  Christ,  of  course,  that  she  saw  flowing  and  she 
seems  to  have  taken  a  morbid  delight  in  this.  Listen 


306    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

to  this :  "  One  morning  at  St.  Dominic,  she  approached 
the  Holy  Table.  Her  face,  all  bathed  in  tears,  was 
beaming  with  joy.  Accustomed  as  the  Dominican,  who 
was  officiating,  was  to  see  her  in  a  state  of  ecstasy,  he 
was  surprised.  Later  on,  he  questioned  her  as  to  the 
cause  of  such  happiness.  *  Have  you  never  seen  a 
mother  show  the  breast  to  her  child,  let  it  cry  for  it 
and  then  give  it  the  food  it  wanted?'  she  replied. 
*  That  is  just  as  the  Lord  was  doing  with  me.  After 
letting  my  lips  nearly  touch  his  side,  he  moved  away, 
smiling  at  my  tears,  and  finally  he  gave  me  my  fill  of 
his  blood,  making  me  long  to  leave  all  and  follow 
him.' '  Is  it  possible,  after  reading  the  Gospel,  to  be- 
lieve in  the  reality  of  such  a  vision?  Is  Christ,  who 
was  so  simple  and  so  dignified,  recognisable  in  this  cruel 
spouse?  Catherine  says,  too,  that  she  had  the  sensa- 
tion of  the  taste  of  Christ's  blood.  This  sensation  was 
neither  more  nor  less  than  hysteria.  She  fed  her  nuns 
with  bread  soaked  in  this  blood  —  and  it  vivified  them. 
On  her  death-bed  she  wanted  bloody  sweats.  In  the 
thirteenth  century,  people  saw  in  all  this  supernatural 
phenomena.  In  the  twentieth  century  we  can  only  see 
pathological  phenomena  in  it  all.  The  gods  needed 
these  sick  people  and  most  of  them  did  remarkable  work 
in  the  world.  St.  Catherine  of  Sienna,  the  daughter  of 
an  uneducated  dyer,  brought  the  Western  schism  to 
an  end,  led  the  Pope  back  to  Rome,  made  peace  between 
several  hostile  Republics  and  took  rank  herself  among 
the  great  women  of  Italy.  Her  halo  of  sanctity  served 
as  well  as  an  army.  These  are  the  things  which  rouse 
my  admiration,  more  than  any  in  the  world. 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  307 

St.  Theresa  came  two  centuries  later,  in  the  very 
midst  of  the  Renaissance.  Very  many  leaves  of  the 
human  mind  had  been  turned,  and  monastic  influence 
was  on  the  wane.  She  was  to  be  a  reformer.  It  is  so 
true  that  our  cellules  contain  the  germs  of  our  destinies 
that  "  her  great  amusement  as  a  child  was  to  build 
little  monasteries."  She  played  at  being  a  nun  just 
as  future  society  women  play  at  being  grand  ladies. 
She  had  one  of  the  strongest  feminine  individualities 
that  has  ever  existed.  She  was  a  woman  of  good  fam- 
ily, a  poetess,  a  writer,  a  thinker,  a  philosopher,  a 
psychologist,  and  neither  physical  suffering  nor  mys- 
ticism could  destroy  or  absorb  her  magnificent  gifts. 

She  was  always  a  thorough  woman  and  very  glad 
to  be  admired.  She  said  to  Brother  Jean  de  la  Misere, 
when  he  had  just  finished  her  portrait:  "May  God 
forgive  you,  Brother  Jean,  for  having  made  me  so 
ugly."  She  loved  cleanliness  and  I  expect  that  she 
had  to  exercise  much  ingenuity  in  order  to  combine 
cleanliness  and  poverty. 

At  the  age  of  twenty  she  had  experienced  the  martyr- 
dom of  neurasthenia,  which  she  describes  as  follows : 
"  My  tongue  was  in  shreds,  for  I  had  bitten  it  so 
much;  I  felt  as  though  my  whole  body  were  out  of 
joint,  my  head  was  confused  and  my  nerves  so  con- 
tracted that  it  seemed  to  me  I  was  all  drawn  up  into  a 
ball." 

With  just  the  same  sincerity,  she  speaks  of  the 
phenomena  which  took  place  in  her  soul,  and  she  did 
what  no  other  mystic  has  done,  she  analysed  these 
phenomena  with  an  audacity  and  an  independence  which 


308    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

make  these  accounts  veritable  revelations.  Psychical 
science  would  do  well  to  utilise  such  documents,  as  they 
are  more  true  than  anything  that  has  been  written.  It 
was  unwise  of  her  to  laugh  at  the  suspicions  of  the  In- 
quisition, for  it  might  have  snapped  her  up  merely  for 
having  said  that  "  in  the  inner  world  there  are  certain 
natural  movements  which  are  as  impossible  to  stop  as 
those  of  Heaven."  She  confesses  that  it  was  only  with 
great  difficulty  that  the  orison  had  been  possible  to 
her,  and  the  paths  of  the  initiation  had  been  most  try- 
ing, but  she  adds  that  she  had  been  "  rewarded  by  a 
magnificent  salary."  She  says  that  she  "  never  saw 
anything  through  the  eyes  of  the  body."  She  distin- 
guishes between  intellectual  visions  and  imaginary  vi- 
sions.  She  owns  that  there  are  imaginary  visions.  Ah, 
what  a  brave  saint  she  was  1  And  as  imagination  is 
in  our  motor,  the  visions  must  be  there  too.  In  the 
intellectual  visions,  she  felt  that  our  Lord  was  there 
"  by  a  knowledge  clearer  than  the  sun."  She  then 
goes  on  to  say :  "  Imaginary  visions  are  of  a  less  ele- 
vated order,  but,  in  certain  respects,  they  are  more 
profitable,  as  they  are  more  in  harmony  with  our  na- 
ture." Is  not  that  an  admirable  piece  of  psychology ! 
In  the  same  way  she  declares  rapture  to  be  superior 
to  ecstasy.  "  One  cannot  resist  it ; "  she  says,  "  an- 
ticipating every  thought  and  all  inner  preparation,  it 
swoops  down  upon  you  with  such  sudden  impetuosity 
that  you  feel  the  heavenly  cloud,  or  the  divine  eagle 
seizing  you  and  carrying  you  away.  .  .  ." 

She  had  visions  of  hell  too.     This  was,  no  doubt, 
•when  her  poor  nerves  were  strained  by  the  superhuman 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  309 

effort  of  the  orison.  She  owns  that  she  endured  phys- 
ical torture ;  and  she  adds  "  but  that  torture  was  noth- 
ing compared  to  the  agony  of  soul.  This  was  a  grip, 
an  anguish,  a  complete  break-down,  so  intense  that  it 
seems  to  me  in  vain  to  attempt  to  depict  it  at  all." 
Some  of  our  neurasthenics  of  the  twentieth  century 
have  experienced  this  sadness  "  so  bitter  and  so  hope- 
less," that  they  have  been  driven  by  it  to  suicide. 

The  "  unitive  "  path  was  to  lead  the  Carmelite  nun 
of  Avila  to  the  mystic  marriage,  as  it  had  led  Catherine 
of  Sienna,  but,  and  this  is  a.  detail  to  note, —  each  of 
these  marriages  reflects  the  character  of  the  woman ; 
that  of  St.  Catherine,  the  grande  amoureuse,  and  that 
of  St.  Theresa,  the  intellectual,  woman.  The  marriage 
of  the  latter  took  place  in  the  following  way :  "  Christ 
appeared  to  her  in  an  imaginary  vision,  and,  giving 
her  his  hand,  he  said :  *  Behold  this  nail ;  it  is  a  sign 
that  from  this  moment,  thou  art  my  spouse;  my  hon- 
our will  be  thine  and  thy  honour  mine ! ' :  And  those, 
it  seems  to  me,  are  the  words  of  the  earthly  marriage, 
and  particularly  of  the  English  marriage.  The  honour 
of  the  Christ-God  in  the  hands  of  a  creature ! 

St.  Theresa  conversed  constantly  with  the  personages 
of  her  dream.  She  even  received  messages  from  Christ 
'for  her  confessors.  Did  she  really  hear  voices?  I  be- 
lieve she  did.  A  great  number  of  men  among  Pagans, 
Hebrews  and  Christians  have  heard  voices  and,  as  "  all 
things  concur,"  these  voices  have  all  concurred  towards 
something  and,  frequently,  towards  something  immense ! 
The  voice  which  stopped  St.  Paul,  on  the  road  to  Da- 
mascus, gave  to  the  Church  an  intellect  without  which 


310          THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

it  could  not  have  been  organised.  Voices  have  "  con- 
curred "  in  the  erection  of  temples,  churches,  expiatory 
monuments ;  they  have  put  victory  on  to  many  scales. 
The  voices  heard  by  Joan  of  Arc  gave  France  back  to 
its  own  country.  The  voices  heard  by  Bernadette 
Soubirous  caused  the  Lourdes  sanctuary  to  be  created. 
The  question  is  where  did  all  these  voices  come  from? 
Did  they  come  from  the  Beyond?  No,  they  certainly 
did  not.  Where  did  they  come  from  then?  For  a 
whole  week  I  had  this  note  of  interrogation  grappling 
with  my  thoughts  and  it  was  distinctly  uncomfortable 
for  me.  Then,  one  morning,  in  the  midst  of  the  not 
very  spiritual  delight  of  my  early  breakfast,  which  I 
was  taking  at  my  table  near  the  window,  in  order  to 
enjoy  the  beauty  of  an  Autumn  dawn,  I  had  an  inward 
start. 

"  Why,  our  cellules  speak  !  "  I  exclaimed  aloud.  For 
the  first  time,  I  had  just  conceived  this  magnificent 
miracle  of  Nature!  They  speak,  and,  touched  by  the 
psychical  currents  which  govern  them,  just  as  the  flower 
is  touched  by  the  sun,  they  say  what  they  have  to  say 
—  and  nothing  else.  In  certain  motors  that  are  all 
out  of  order,  they  chatter  wildly  and  send  people  mad 
or  neurasthenic.  In  a  state  of  extreme  concentration, 
they  can  be  heard  so  distinctly  that  people  believe  they 
are  foreign  to  them.  A  few  days  ago,  a  young  com- 
poser told  me  that,  the  evening  before,  as  he  was  writ- 
ing something  for  the  piano,  he  heard  the  voice  of  the 
violin  accompanying  it  so  distinctly  that  it  disturbed 
him,  and  he  was  obliged  to  interrupt  his  work  in  order 
to  break  the  spell.  Was  it  this  fact  which,  by  nn  occult 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  311 

association,  led  me  to  what  I  believe  to  be  the  truth? 
This  I  cannot  tell.  Scientifically,  my  idea  is,  perhaps, 
not  worth  a  single  maravedi,*  but  I  would  not  part  with 
it  for  a  hundred  thousand  francs.  Let  others  find  a 
better  explanation ! 

St.  Theresa  was  not  only  devoted  to  contemplation, 
she  became  a  reformer  and  a  founder.  Towards  the 
age  of  forty-six  —  and  that  age  will  have  some  mean- 
ing for  a  medical  man  —  she  was  freed  from  those  ter- 
rible attacks  which  had  made  of  her  physically  a  suffer- 
ing captive  and,  during  a  curious  apostleship,  she 
experienced  the  joy  of  action. 

No  one,  as  far  as  I  know,  has  yet  attempted  to  live 
according  to  the  spirit  of  the  Gospel.  Very  many  peo- 
ple, among  others  the  early  Christians  and  the  mendi- 
cant Orders,  have  tried  to  put  the  letter  into  practice. 
That  letter,  which  is  pure  Oriental  literature,  killed  the 
spirit  of  their  work.  St.  Dominic  and  St.  Francis  of 
Assisi,  for  instance,  by  trying  to  put  into  practice 
evangelical  poverty,  created  the  desire  for  wealth  in 
their  communities.  This  was  the  natural  reaction. 
Beside  this,  they  instituted  feminine  branches  of  their 
Orders.  And,  as  a  climax  of  imprudence,  they  estab- 
lished, side  by  side  with  every  convent  of  monks,  a  con- 
vent of  rigidly  cloistered  nuns.  The  monks  had  to  beg 
for  these  nuns  and  provide  for  all  their  temporal  and 
spiritual  needs.  These  two  innocent  saints,  with  a 
childish  ignorance  of  real  human  nature,  opened  up  the 
way  finely  for  his  lordship,  Satan,  whom  they  spent 
their  days  in  fighting.  And  in  this  way,  they  sowed 

*  A  very  small  copper  coin  formerly  used  in  Spain. 


312          THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

germs  of  dissolution  which  increased  the  scandal  caused 
by  the  Church.  During  the  lifetime  of  their  founders 
even,  the  mendicant  Orders  were  entirely  transformed 
and,  towards  the  close  of  the  thirteenth  century,  the 
question  of  reform  was  being  agitated.  In  the  sixteenth 
century,  the  barefooted  Carmelite  monks  were  wearing 
shoes  and  their  garments  were  of  fine  cloth.  They  were 
to  be  met  on  all  the  roads  of  Spain,  no  longer  on  foot, 
with  their  wallets  on  their  backs,  but  in  splendid  com- 
panies, mounted  on  richly  harnessed  mules  and  followed 
by  carts  carrying  their  provisions  —  and  all  the  rest 
to  match.  It  was  at  this  juncture  that  St.  Theresa  be- 
came a  reformer  and  a  founder.  "  All  things  concur," 
even  the  real  or  imaginary  visions  of  the  mystics.  The 
visions  that  St.  Theresa  had  of  hell  inspired  her  with 
such  terror  of  the  torments  she  saw  reserved  for  sinners, 
that  she  was  possessed  with  the  most  passionate  zeal 
for  their  conversion.  The  reform  of  the  Carmelite 
Order  seemed  to  be  the  first  thing  necessary,  and  she 
gave  herself  up  to  this,  body  and  soul.  She  began  with 
the  feminine  branch  of  the  Order,  by  way  of  giving  an 
example,  I  suppose,  to  the  masculine  branch.  This  was 
wise  and  intelligent.  With  a  few  nuns,  she  founded  a 
new  convent  where  the  rigid  observances  of  the  early 
days  were  practised.  With  the  idea  of  consoling  her 
Saviour,  the  romantic  woman  wanted  to  bring  fresh 
Mary  Magdalenes  to  his  feet  —  and  she  found  them. 
The  gods,  for  economic  reasons  no  doubt,  needed  to 
have  a  certain  number  of  women  taken  away  from  social 
activity.  St.  Theresa  was,  therefore,  able  to  realise  the 
dream  of  her  childhood,  for  she  founded  twenty-seven 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE     313 

monasteries.  Each  foundation  must  have  been  a  little 
adventure  which  gave  infinite  satisfaction  to  her  mind. 

Encouraged  by  her  success,  and  with  the  approval  of 
the  head  of  the  Order,  she  now  undertook  the  reform  of 
the  masculine  branch ;  she  "  reformed  her  confessors 
and  her  directors."  In  our  twentieth  century,  it  has 
not  yet  occurred  to  the  feminists  to  reform  themselves 
first  —  and  then  to  reform  the  men.  St.  Theresa  un- 
derstood more  about  psychology  than  they  do.  Her 
struggle  for  the  re-establishment  of  the  rules  which 
ordered  long  fasting,  a  hard  life,  coarse  clothing  and 
bare  feet,  was  both  epic  and  comic,  one  of  Providence's 
humoristic  traits.  The  Carmelite  nun  displayed  a 
knowledge  of  the  human  soul,  a  philosophy  and  a  charm 
which  place  her  in  an  unequalled  position  among  women 
and,  in  spite  of  the  number  of  her  adversaries,  among 
the  bare-footed  monks,  she  won  the  victory.  This  re- 
form gave  St.  Theresa  a  joy  which,  I  am  sure,  was 
intense,  for  it  was  that  of  spiritual  maternity.  The 
Fathers  and  the  Brothers,  whose  souls  she  had  saved, 
became  her  sons,  her  beloved  sons,  and  she  experienced 
the  joys  of  maternity  in  its  most  elevated  aspects.  I 
am  glad  of  this  for  her  sake. 

I  discovered  an  undeniable  proof,  during  this  reform, 
of  what  I  believe  to  be  the  truth.  The  Carmelite  nun 
of  Avila,  who  was  a  great  psychologist,  feared  ag- 
glomerations of  those  who  were  to  devote  themselves  to 
contemplation,  more  particularly  if  they  were  women. 
She  even  wrote  to  her  brother :  "  We  must  not  have 
more  than  thirteen  in  any  of  our  houses."  The  fol- 
lowing is  her  own  account  of  one  of  her  visions :  "  In 


314          THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

the  midst  of  the  most  profound  and  solemn  calm,  I 
heard  these  words  from  Our  Lord:  *  You  must  tell  the 
barefooted  Carmelite  Fathers  from  me  that,  in  spite  of 
the  large  number  of  monasteries,  there  must  be  few 
monks  in  each.' '  It  was  then,  certainly,  the  voice  of 
her  own  cellules  that  she  heard,  and  not  the  voice  of 
Christ. 

Our  neuro-pathologists  ought  to  read  the  life  and 
letters  of  St.  Theresa.  They  would  find  valuable  reve- 
lations there  for  science,  and  more  truthful  ones  than 
in  the  confessions  of  their  patients. 

In  our  motor,  which  we  know  so  little  as  yet,  there 
are  not  only  cellules  which  speak,  but  also  cellules  which 
write.  The  communications  which  the  spiritists  re- 
ceive, come  from  the  frontal  lobes  and  their  inter- 
mediaries, and  not  from  another  world.  I  guarantee 
the  truth  of  the  following  episode.  Some  years  ago, 
a  charming  young  friend  of  mine,  who  lived  at  Tou- 
louse, was  told  that  she  had  the  eyes  of  a  medium  and 
that  she  ought  to  be  able  to  -write.  Very  much  flattered 
by  this,  she  took  a  pencil  and  a  sheet  of  paper  (as  it 
was  before  the  invention  of  alphabets  and  planchettes), 
and  concentrated  her  thoughts,  according  to  the  in- 
structions she  had  received.  For  three  days,  she  felt 
nothing  except  a  few  nervous  movements.  Finally,  the 
pencil  began  to  move,  tracing  first  the  strokes  of  the 
letter  m  and  single  words  without  any  meaning.  Soon 
complete  phrases  came  and,  in  strange  handwriting,  in 
endless  diagonal  lines,  it  gave  pages  of  prose  signed 

"  Ariel."     Madame  X was  a  Huguenot.     She  read 

her  Bible  every  day  and  it  is  quite  possible  that  she  had 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE     315 

been  impressed  by  the  name  of  the  idol  of  the  Moabites 
who,  it  appears,  was  a  "  bad  angel."  I  read  a  few  of 
her  pages  and  I  did  not  find  a  single  thought  which  re- 
vealed another  world  than  ours.  They  were  most  com- 
monplace attempts. 

"  Ariel "  was  not  long  before  he  exercised  an  irre- 
sistible influence  over  my  young  friend.  She  thought 
of  him  as  a  living  personage,  and  if  she  had  been  a 
mystic,  she  would,  no  doubt,  have  seen  him.  She  wrote 
that  she  felt  perfectly  happy  and  so  light,  so  very  light . 
When  one  of  the  things  he  announced  came  to  pass,  she 
was  in  great  exultation  and  she  forgot  his  wrong  pre- 
dictions. He  certainly  must  have  been  a  "  bad  angel," 
for  he  played  an  abominable  trick  on  her.  Her  hus- 
band had  to  go  to  Paris  on  business,  and  she  remained 
at  Toulouse.  One  evening,  after  dinner,  she  took  up 
the  magic  pencil  and  the  spirit  at  once  told  her  that 
"  George  had  been  in  bed  for  forty-eight  hours  with  40° 
of  fever,  that  he  thought  he  had  gastritis,  but  that  it 
was  a  dangerous  typhoid  fever."  She  rang  the  bell 
for  the  time-table,  had  some  clothes  put  into  a  valise 
and  was  able  to  catch  the  last  train.  She  adored  her 
husband  and,  all  night  long,  she  had  to  endure  that  par- 
ticularly cruel  kind  of  torture  of  the  soul  which  wants 
to  fly  to  some  one  and  feels  itself  a  captive.  The  fol- 
lowing day  she  reached  Paris  and,  more  dead  than  alive, 
she  arrived  in  the  court-yard  of  the  Grand  Hotel. 
With  trembling  fingers  she  paid  for  her  carriage  and 
then,  turning  round,  found  herself  face  to  face  with 
George,  who  was  beaming  with  health.  Uttering  a  cry, 
she  flung  her  arms  round  his  neck,  embraced  him  fran- 


316    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

tically  and  then  burst  into  sobs,  in  the  presence  of  all 
the  on-lookers,  who,  at  that  hour  of  the  da}',  are  numer- 
ous. The  little  scene,  related  graphically  by  her  hus- 
band, made  me  laugh  heartily.  He  told  me  that  he 
had  had  the  impression  of  being  suddenly  wrapped 
round  by  a  cyclone.  The  explanation  which  followed 
•was  somewhat  humiliating  for  the  young  wife,  but  her 
joy  at  having  been  mistaken  was  so  great  that  she  put 
up  good-humouredly  with  all  the  teasing  she  had  to 
endure.  In  spite  of  this  lesson  and  her  promise  to  her 
husband  to  give  up  "  Ariel,"  it  was  not  long  before  she 
took  up  the  magic  pencil  once  more,  under  the  pretext 
of  wanting  to  know  why  he  had  deceived  her.  He  re- 
plied that  it  was  to  test  her,  and  this  idea  was  evidently 
her  own.  After  this  test,  the  suggestion  became  so 
powerful  that  the  poor  woman  was  alarmed.  She  went 
to  Paris  to  consult  a  great  scientist,  Dr.  Gruby,  who 
was  never  appreciated  as  he  ought  to  have  been.  She 
told  him  that  she  was  possessed  by  a  demon  and  she 
begged  him  to  try  to  find  her  a  Catholic  priest  who 
would  exorcise  it.  Dr.  Gruby  smiled  and  took  down, 
from  a  shelf  of  his  bookcase,  a  certain  pamphlet  which 
had  recently  been  published.  "  Read  that,"  he  said, 
"  it  is  a  study  on  auto-suggestion.  You  will  see  that 
you  are  not  possessed.  You  have  set  free  a  hitherto 
unknown  force,  that  is  all.  It  is  you  yourself  who  must 
exorcise  yourself.  If  I  ordered  you  to  stop  writing, 
you  could  not  do  it,  but  you  must  shorten  this  fantas- 
tical correspondence  five  minutes  every  day  !  "  And  the 
doctor,  who  was  a  psychologist,  in  one  of  his  extremely 
detailed  prescriptions,  told  his  patient  how  she  was  to 


317 

employ  every  hour  of  her  day.  She  had  so  thoroughly 
felt  the  danger  she  was  running  that  she  now  obeyed 
religiously  and  she  recovered,  but  the  recovery  took  her 
three  months. 

It  seems  to  me  that  this  phenomenon  belongs  to  the 
same  family  as  the  one  that  I  have  just  been  studying. 
And  now  let  us  look  at  the  wonderfulness  of  it. 
"  Ariel,"  that  little  idol  of  the  Moabites,  a  very  old 
tribe  of  Palestine,  was  a  fictitious  creation  whom  the 
Hebrews  had  called  the  "  bad  angel."  It  had  come 
from  some  human  cellules,  and  it  now  appeared  once 
more  in  those  of  a  woman  of  the  twentieth  century  and 
"  served  "  for  making  her  take  a  cruel  j  ourney  from 
Toulouse  to  Paris. 

My  promenade  in  the  "  secret  garden  "  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  has  rid  my  mind  of  a  crowd  of  preju- 
dices, due  to  my  ignorance  concerning  its  mysteries. 
It  has  revealed  to  me  a  crowd  of  phenomena  about  which 
I  am  glad  to  know,  because  they  are  a  part  of  Life. 

I  have  been  told  that  if  a  chalk  ring  be  drawn  round 
a  fowl,  it  becomes  so  hypnotised  by  this  that  it  will  not 
go  outside  the  ring,  even  to  eat  or  drink.  It  seems  to 
me  as  though  the  gods  keep  those  who  spend  their  time 
in  contemplation  within  a  metaphysical  ring,  formed 
by  the  mysteries  of  religion,  and  that  these  people  live 
and  die  within  this  circle  without  knowing  anything  else 
of  Life  and  its  wonders.  Within  this  circle,  mystics 
elaborate  for  themselves  a  more  ethereal  and  more  subtle 
soul  than  ours.  The  concentration  to  which  they  are 
doomed  produces  -films,  visions  which  they  believe  belong 
to  the  Beyond,  and  which  belong  to  the  Here  below,  and 


318    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

very  much  to  the  Here  below.  They  are  always  think- 
ing of  their  soul,  it  is  their  one  care  in  this  world. 
Sin  is  its  mania,  and  it  would  seem  as  though  it  consoled 
itself  for  not  being  able  to  transgress  by  creating  for 
itself  the  illusion  of  sin.  I  know  orthodox  people  who 
have  not  taken  religious  vows  who  do  the  same  thing. 
St.  Catherine  of  Sienna  had  a  little  detachment  of  con- 
fessors who  used  to  accompany  her  on  her  travels.  We 
see  from  the  following  lines  the  character  of  her  sins. 
"  One  day,  she  said  to  the  Father  of  the  Dominicans, 
'  Ah,  how  I  have  offended  the  Creator.  Whilst  He,  in 
His  goodness,  was  letting  me  see  St.  Dominic,  I  looked 
away  to  see  my  brother  cross  the  Church ! '  The 
monk,  who  was  probably  more  sound-minded  than  his 
penitent,  endeavoured  to  appease  her  conscience,  but 
she  answered :  "  If  you  could  only  see  with  what  se- 
verity the  Master  whom  God  has  given  me,  the  apostle 
St.  Paul,  blames  me,  you  would  not  be  so  indulgent  for 
my  gin.  Let  me  tell  you  that  if  I  had  died  without  con- 
fessing, the  happiness  of  seeing  God  would  not  have 
been  granted  to  me  immediately."  According  to  my 
idea,  she  deserved  to  have  never  seen  Him  for  under- 
standing Him  so  little.  Sin  was  her  mania! 

The  soul  of  mystics  and  of  saints  generally  lacks  true 
grandeur.  It  is  very  narrow,  childish  and  selfish. 
Their  faith  is  so  absolute  that  they  transport  all  that 
they  covet  to  the  Beyond.  They  want  honours,  wealth, 
unperishablc  things  and  the  first  place,  always  the  first 
place.  That  is  a  sort  of  celestial  prize  cup  and,  in 
order  to  win  it,  they  show  very  earthly  avidity.  St. 
Francis  even,  the  gentle  mystic  of  Assisi,  who  sat  down 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  319 

and  ate  on  the  bare  ground,  longed  for  a  throne.  This 
desire  was  perhaps  created  by  fatigue.  Christ  had 
promised  it  to  him!  Giotto  gives  it  to  him  in  one  of 
his  frescoes,  and  I  could  not  help  laughing  on  seeing 
that  it  is  represented  by  an  arm-chair. 

Some  heretics  said  to  St.  Dominic :  "  What  should 
you  do  if  we  were  to  take  possession  of  you?  "  He  re- 
plied :  "  I  should  ask  you  not  to  put  me  to  death  at 
one  blow,  but  to  tear  my  limbs  off  one  at  a  time,  in  order 
to  lengthen  out  my  martyrdom.  I  should  like  to  be 
nothing  but  a  trunk  without  limbs,  to  have  my  eyes 
torn  out,  to  roll  in  my  own  blood  (for  there  is  always 
blood)  in  order  to  win  a  more  beautiful  martyr's 
crown." 

Mystics  neither  had  perfect  love  for  God,  nor  for 
humanity.  As  for  God,  they  loved  Him  as  the  dis- 
penser of  heavenly  rewards.  With  regard  to  human- 
ity, as  they  were  placed  themselves  on  another  plane, 
they  were  never  in  communion  with  it.  The  charity 
they  exercised  was  only  a  means  of  increasing  their  own 
merits.  St.  Francis  of  Assisi  did  not  kiss  the  leper's 
wounds  out  of  fraternal  love,  but  in  order  to  increase 
his  credit  account  in  the  Ledger.  That,  at  any  rate, 
is  my  impression.  The  humility  of  the  mystics  is  a 
false  and  unintelligent  humility.  It  is  false,  because 
voluntary  humiliation  and  poverty  are  a  glorification. 
It  is  unintelligent,  because,  however  low  down  a  man 
may  be  in  the  Universe,  he  is  the  earthly  masterpiece  of 
the  sovereign  manufacturer,  and  it  cannot  be  pleasing 
to  the  latter  to  hear  man  depreciating  himself.  God 
is  not  an  Oriental  potentate,  who  needs  the  abasement  of 


320    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

his  servitor,  in  order  to  feel  his  own  greatness.  When 
I  was  a  little  girl  and,  for  some  reason  or  another,  ex- 
claimed :  "  How  stupid  I  am ! "  my  mother  corrected 
me,  telling  me  that  it  was  a  lack  of  respect  towards  my 
Creator  to  say  such  a  thing,  and  she  was  perfectly  right. 
At  bottom,  in  reality,  all  that  is  mere  literature. 

The  mystic  soul  has  now  lived  out  its  days  of  child- 
hood and  malady.  It  will  evolve  like  us  and  with  us,  it 
will  learn  to  know  God,  Life,  humanity,  and  to  love 
them  in  a  more  perfect  way.  Hitherto,  it  has  only 
scratched  at  the  door  of  the  Beyond,  it  will  learn  to 
knock  there  in  a  dignified  manner.  That  door  will,  per- 
haps, open  to  the  mystic  soul,  and  it  will  then  have  the 
glory  of  bringing  back  the  password  to  Science. 

In  the  flight  that  I  have  just  made,  whilst  hovering 
over  the  Mystical  Garden  of  the  Catholic  Church,  I  was 
able  to  surprise  the  true  secret  of  the  attraction  that  it 
has  had,  and  that  it  still  has,  for  numbers  of  individuals. 

There  are,  in  that  garden,  just  as  in  Eden,  God,  the 
demon-serpent,  Adam  and  Eve,  all  the  personages  of 
the  symbolical  drama.  The  primordial  struggle  takes 
place  again  there  and,  circumscribed  within  the  meta- 
physical plane,  it  must  be  an  impassioned  struggle. 
Sly  Nature  has  brought  the  feminine  soul  and  the  mas- 
culine soul  there  together  and,  up  above,  just  as  down 
below,  they  act  on  each  other.  This  action,  in  the 
mystical  regions,  produces  a  love  and  a  friendship  which 
are  more  intense  and  more  faithful  than  ours,  and  also 
spiritual  fraternity  and  flirtation  which  must  have  in- 
tense charm.  The  idea  of  spiritual  flirtation  will  hor- 
rify certain  persons,  but  I  cannot  take  back  the  word, 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  321 

as  the  thing  exists  among  the  mystics,  just  as  it  does 
among  simple  mortals.  It  is  the  flower,  the  fruit  of 
which  we  eat,  and  I  am  not  sure  that  it  has  not  more 
perfume  than  the  fruit.  When  St.  Theresa  was  a  young 
Carmelite  nun,  she  converted  one  of  her  confessors,  a 
man  of  good  family,  but  not  of  strict  morality.  She 
thought  she  could  prepare  him  for  the  love  of  God, 
by  means  of  the  love  that  she  had  awakened  in  him. 
Was  not  this  a  skilful  method?  And  with  that  fine 
frankness,  which  is  my  admiration,  she  says :  "  If  we 
had  not  had  the  thought  of  God  very  present,  we  should 
have  been  in  danger  of  offending  Him  seriously !  "  In 
physical  flirtation,  then,  it  is,  perhaps,  the  devil  who  is 
present. 

In  the  "  secret  garden,"  it  is  by  means  of  the  con- 
fessional that  there  is  communion  between  souls,  and 
this  communion  is  the  great  attraction  of  the  cloister 
and  of  the  religious  life.  Without  it,  these  would  not 
have  been  able  to  subsist,  as  the  organism  would  not 
have  been  complete.  Nowhere  else  has  human  com- 
munion been  more  fervent  and  more  profound.  Women 
who  would  have  believed  it  to  be  a  deadly  sin  to  take 
off  their  veil  in  the  presence  of  a  man,  even  of  their 
own  family,  bare  their  souls  entirely  to  the  thought  of 
a  confessor.  They  tell  him  all  the  phenomena  of  which 
that  soul  is  the  theatre,  they  speak  to  him  of  the  joys 
and  sufferings  of  the  orison,  of  their  struggles  with  that 
private  enemy  whom  they  call  "  the  demon,"  an  enemy 
which,  in  reality,  is  their  own  body  rebelling  against 
the  bad  treatment  inflicted  upon  it.  Beside  all  this, 
directors  and  penitents  tell  each  other  of  "  God's  fa- 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

vours,"  that  is,  of  their  visions,  their  raptures,  their 
ecstasies.  They  start  together  for  great  flights.  If 
they  should  touch  earth  somewhere,  far  away  from  the 
eyes  of  the  crowd,  we  must  not  be  surprised  or  scan- 
dalised. What  is  more  grave  is  the  fact  that  they  must 
frequently  have  exaggerated  and  disfigured  "  God's  fa- 
vours." They  must  have  created  false  miracles,  in 
order  to  astonish  and  interest  each  other.  That  wish, 
common  to  us  all,  to  interest  our  fellow-beings,  must  be 
still  more  strong  in  the  case  of  these  creatures  who  are 
deprived  of  all  earthly  affection  and  set  so  strangely 
apart  from  the  rest  of  the  world. 

At  the  bottom  of  mysticism,  we  find  many  dregs,  as 
we  do  in  all  human  cups,  but  on  the  top  of  these  dregs 
there  is  a  very  pure  liqueur.  The  divine  transmuter 
has  drawn  wonderful  forces  from  religious  neurosis,  just 
in  the  same  way  as  the  precious  pearls  have  been  ob- 
tained, thanks  to  the  oyster's  disease.  We  cannot  help 
our  admiration  and  our  adoration  in  the  face  of  such 
marvels. 

The  "  secret  garden  "  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
has  given  us  good  and  bad  fruit.  It  has  furnished  Art, 
Science  and  Life  with  the  accumulators  they  needed. 
Who  would  want  to  destroy  the  Basilica  of  Assisi,  the 
outcome  of  the  mystic  dream  of  St.  Francis?  Every 
intelligent  Protestant,  every  Protestant  thinker  and 
artist  must  envy  Catholicism  its  mysteries  and  its  mira- 
cles, barbarous  though  they  may  seem  to  him,  for  they 
are  its  title  deeds  of  antiquity,  its  letters  patent  of 
nobility. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

AFTER  having  doubled  the  Cape  of  Religion  and  of 
Mysticism,  I  expected  to  find  the  open  sea,  and  here  I 
am  now  facing  another  reef,  that  of  Miracles.  I  can 
feel  my  barque,  "  The  Why,"  once  more  tossed  by  the 
waves  caused  by  this  reef. 

What  is  a  miracle?  The  dictionary  defines  it  as  "  an 
act  of  the  Divine  Power  contrary  to  the  laws  of  Nature 
—  an  extraordinary  thing ! "  Is  an  act  contrary  to 
the  laws  of  Nature,  such  as  the  stopping  of  the  course 
of  the  stars,  or  the  resurrection  of  a  dead  person,  pos- 
sible ?  These  phenomena  seem  to  have  never  taken 
place,  except  in  the  imagination  of  the  sacred  poets :  the 
laws  of  Nature  being  the  laws  of  the  Eternal  God,  every 
phenomenon  which  contradicts  these  is  only  a  spiritual 
mirage.  Men  only  believed  in  them,  thanks  to  sugges- 
tion, and  because  they  needed  to  believe  in  them. 

With  the  laws  which  we  do  not  yet  know  thoroughly, 
we  can  do  great  wonders.  We  move  about  uncon- 
sciously, as  the  fish  do  in  water,  in  the  midst  of  physical 
and  psychical  currents  which  would  annihilate  us  if  we 
were  not  immortal.  That  is,  in  my  opinion,  the  scien- 
tific proof  of  our  indestructibility. 

Among  these  currents  is  that  of  Suggestion.  From 
very  earliest  times,  the  Terrestrian  has  had  to  submit 
to  this  force,  the  most  formidable  one  in  the  Universe, 
whose  projector  is  the  Eternal  God  —  Destiny.  We 

are  only  just  beginning  to  be  aware  of  it.     It  produces, 

323 


324  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

in  the  soul  of  the  world,  waves,  tempests,  and  cyclones, 
like  those  of  the  Ocean.  Without  even  knowing  it,  we 
are  its  receivers  and  distributors  and  we  exercise  it 
constantly  on  each  other.  Wireless  telegraphy  will 
help  us  a  little  to  understand  the  way  in  which  Nature 
proceeds.  The  most  insignificant  can  act  on  the  great- 
est, and  the  greatest  on  the  most  insignificant.  This  is 
the  most  startling  proof  of  our  fraternity.  The  do- 
mestic who  brings  you  your  early  breakfast  may  utter 
a  few  words  which  will  affect  your  entire  day.  The 
daily  letters  of  a  society  woman,  or  of  a  business  man, 
contain  words  which  will  make  them  act  in  such  and 
such  a  way,  by  touching  certain  cellules  of  their  motor. 
And  we  are  all  of  us  suggestionised  by  thousands  of 
things  which  are  to  "  concur  "  with  regard  to  our  des- 
tinies, by  the  spirit  of  the  dead  as  well  as  by  that  of  the 
living.  And  no  single  suggestion  comes  to  us  by  chance, 
for  chance  could  not  exist.  Every  suggestion  is  a  re- 
action and  a  radiation.  We  may  not  only  be  sugges- 
tionised by  others,  but  we  may  suggestionise  ourselves. 
In  auto-suggestion,  the  action  is  not  exteriorised,  per- 
haps because  the  guiding  nerve  is  relaxed ;  it  acts  on 
itself  with  the  cellules  of  the  imagination  and  the  door 
is  then  open  to  all  the  phobias,  to  neurasthenia  and  to 
its  painful  extravagancies.  The  senses  even  may  be  in- 
fluenced by  a  kind  of  reflex  suggestion.  I  once  hap- 
pened to  sprinkle  an  orange  with  salt,  instead  of  sugar. 
The  taste  was  so  disagreeable  to  me  that,  for  the  next 
three  days,  my  palate  was  so  affected  by  it  that  each 
time  I  took  sugar  I  fancied  it  was  salt. 

The  power  of  suggestion  is  very  strong  with  those 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  325 

who  are  called  upon  to  govern  the  masses,  to  group  to- 
gether individuals  and  to  lead  them  on  to  some  special 
work. 

Doctors  are  now  trying  to  canalise  suggestion  and 
use  it  for  the  cure  of  nervous  diseases.  By  means  of 
certain  methods  which  are  known  to  them,  they  produce 
hypnotic  sleep.  This  is  a  great  deal  certainly,  as,  dur- 
ing this  repose,  the  human  motor,  with  Nature's  help, 
has  some  chance  of  repairing  itself.  These  doctors  be- 
lieve, too,  that  with  concentration,  and  the  application 
of  their  sound  thought,  they  will  be  able  to  restore  the 
right  note  to  diseased  cellules.  Can  they  really  do  this  ? 
We  must  put  a  note  of  interrogation  there.  The 
science  of  the  future  will  be  able  to  reply  triumphantly 
to  this  question,  perhaps.  In  the  meantime,  we  are 
passing  through  the  period  of  attempts.  What  makes 
me  a  little  doubtful  is  the  number  of  patients  being 
treated.  To  draw  this  forceful  fluid,  suggestion,  from 
one's  brain  in  a  continued  stream,  seems  to  me  difficult, 
if  not  impossible.  Then,  if  a  miracle  is  to  be  worked, 
there  must  be  two  to  work  it.  They  can  only  obtain 
any  result  over  individuals  whose  fluids  are  not  refrac- 
tory to  theirs.  This  seems  to  me  the  best  proof  that 
there  is  something  in  it  all. 

The  hypnotising  doctor  is  a  sort  of  lay-confessor 
and,  like  his  colleague,  the  Catholic  priest,  he  is  often 
mistaken.  A  number  of  women  of  the  romantic  type,  in 
order  to  win  and  keep  his  interest,  make  him  believe 
that  they  are  influenced  by  his  fluid.  Others  imagine 
that  he  does  them  good  and  he  believes  that  he  is  curing 
them.  This  is  a  phenomenon  of  mutual  auto-sugges- 


326    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

tion.  Will  there  ever  be  healers  who,  thanks  to  a 
strong,  constant,  intelligent  suggestion,  will  be  able  to 
act  on  the  conducting  wires  of  cerebral  cellules  and 
correct  the  defects  of  the  human  motor,  just  as  those 
of  the  aeroplane  motor  are  corrected  ?  Such  men  would 
certainly  be  super-men.  In  order  to  become  a  super- 
man, one  must  first  be  a  man.  Let  us  then  be  grateful 
to  those  who  are  trying  to  make  themselves  masters  of 
this  wonderful  force,  Suggestion. 

Suggestion  and  auto-suggestion  are  the  principal 
agents  of  all  the  metaphysical  miracles,  even  of  that 
of  the  stigmata,  the  only  one  that  it  has  been  given  to 
us  to  verify.  I  have  been  reading  over  again,  in  the 
life  of  St.  Francis,  what  is  called  "  the  great  miracle." 
On  the  heights  of  Mount  Alverne,  one  morning  in  the 
early  dawn,  he  saw,  coming  down  towards  him,  a  seraph 
with  six  shining  wings,  and  upon  him  was  the  picture  of 
a  crucified  man.  After  staying  there  some  time,  the 
wonderful  apparition  disappeared,  leaving  on  the  body 
of  St.  Francis  the  miraculous  traces  of  the  sufferings 
of  Christ,  making  him  look  like  a  living  man  crucified: 
"  The  heads  of  the  naUs  were  in  the  palms  of  his  hands 
and  in  the  upper  part  of  his  feet,  whilst  the  points  came 
out  on  the  other  side  of  the  hands  and  feet.  Between 
the  flesh  and  the  points  of  the  nails  there  was  room  for 
a  finger,  just  as  there  is  through  a  ring.  And  in  the 
game  way,  on  the  saint's  right  side,  there  was  the  mark 
of  a  lance  thrust,  like  a  wound.  The  blood  frequently 
spurted  from  this,  damping  the  robe  of  St.  Francis." 

The  phenomenon  has  never  been  described  in  so  de- 
tailed a  manner  before.  These  painful  and  visible  signs 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  327 

could  not  have  been  an  illusion  for  St.  Francis  and  a  lie 
for  us.  What  did  it  all  mean  then?  For  several  days 
this  prodigious  fact  stopped  me  in  my  work.  I  felt  that 
it  was  true  and  I  could  not  account  for  it.  One  after- 
noon, as  I  was  turning  over  the  pages  of  another  Life 
of  this  Saint,  I  came  to  a  reproduction  of  a  picture  by 
Gentile  da  Fabriano,  representing  the  fantastical  scene 
of  Mount  Alverne  just  as  I  had  read  it.  The  winged 
seraph  was  there ;  his  body  was  bare  and  from  his  right 
side,  from  his  hands  and  his  feet  were  the  rays  which 
were  to  stigmatise  Saint  Francis  who  was  kneeling  be- 
fore him.  This  engraving  fascinated  me  and,  all  at 
once,  it  seemed  to  be  clear  to  me.  Rays  of  light! 
Formerly,  this  symbol  had  always  seemed  most  naif 
and  childish,  but  at  present  it  appeared  to  me  as  a  reve- 
lation, a  wonderful  intuition  of  the  truth.  I  uttered 
an  exclamation  of  joy  and  I  began  to  pace  up  and 
down  my  room,  saying  aloud :  "  I  have  the  key  to  the 
miracle !  "  Could  not  thought  be  transmitted  by  means 
of  luminous  rays?  Science  has  taught  us  that  there 
are  rays  which  burn  and  consume  flesh.  Could  not  an 
ardent  thought,  a  thought  which  had  become  madness, 
nurtured  as  it  had  been  for  long  years  by  the  same 
image,  that  of  the  wounds  of  Christ,  for  instance,  could 
it  not  photograph  these  wounds,  imprint  them  upon 
flesh  that  had  been  worked  upon  by  nerves  and  ultra- 
sensibilised,  like  that  of  St.  Francis?  I  believe  this 
could  be,  I  believe  this  firmly.  My  idea  may  appear 
absurd  now,  but  it  may  be  proved  true  to-morrow,  and 
I  give  it  now  to  await  that  to-morrow  which  I  shall 
not  see. 


328     THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

The  larger  part  of  humanity  has  not  only  believed 
in  miracles,  but  it  has  invented  all  kinds  of  miracles, 
and  this  proves  that  it  needed  them.  The  walls  of 
Pagan  temples,  with  all  their  ex-votos,  acknowledged 
the  favours  received  from  heaven.  Those  walls  were 
aflame  with  faith  and  gratitude  just  as  our  votive 
chapels  now  are.  The  gods  which  Christians  pro- 
claimed false  ones  performed  miracles  just  as  the  true 
God  does.  I  have  never  heard  how  the  Church  explains 
that,  but  perhaps  it  has  never  been  asked  for  an  ex- 
planation. This  brings  me  face  to  face  with  the  burn- 
ing question:  Can  we  really  obtain  from  God  special 
favours  by  means  of  prayers,  gifts  and  sacrifices?  The 
answer  yes  or  no  must  be  given  to  this  question.  It 
seems  to  me,  or  at  least  I  hope,  that  my  readers  are 
grown  up  enough  to  be  able  to  bear  and  to  understand 
the  "  no  "  which  is  written  so  quickly  and  has  been  so 
long  thought  over.  Every  single  thing  is  of  some  con- 
sequence in  the  Universe.  The  appearance  and  the 
disappearance  of  a  flower  and  of  the  tiniest  insect  pro- 
duce infinite  vibrations.  The  man  who  asks  to  be  re- 
stored to  health,  or  who  asks  that  some  one  dear  to 
him  may  be  restored  to  health,  has  no  idea  of  what  the 
consequences  would  be.  As  a  matter  of  fact  man  can 
never  know  -what  he  is  asking.  If  the  restoration  to 
health  which  he  implores  be  written  in  the  Divine  manu- 
script, he  will  obtain  it ;  not  because  he  has  asked  for 
it,  but  because  it  is  necessary  to  Life.  If  it  be  death 
that  Life  wants,  death  will  come.  We  are  the  Divine 
work,  and  this  is,  for  us  Terrestrians,  the  honour  which 
surpasses  all  honours.  We  must  be  in  harmony  with  it. 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  329 

Does  this  mean  that  human  prayer  is  all  useless  and  in 
vain?  Nothing  is  useless  and  nothing  is  in  vain.  It 
has  another  end  than  the  one  we  see,  and  that  end,  we 
may  be  sure,  is  our  progress  and  our  future  welfare. 
The  proof  of  this  is  that  all  the  great  religions  of  the 
East  and  of  the  West  have  had,  and  still  have,  their 
miraculous  sanctuaries,  where  the  crowd  of  afflicted 
ones  come  to  implore  God.  Although  these  prayers  may 
not  be  disinterested  ones,  they  bring  the  creature  for  an 
instant  to  the  Divinity  and,  brief  though  the  contact 
may  be,  the  creature  comes  away  better  and  purified. 
In  former  times,  when  the  spark  was  more  precious  than 
gold,  and  could  only  be  obtained  with  great  difficulty, 
there  were  public  altar-fires  and  people  went  there  to 
fetch  a  light,  just  as  they  went  to  the  fountains  for 
water.  It  is  my  belief  that  the  miraculous  sanctuaries 
are  the  altar-fires  which  serve  to  keep  up  our  faith, 
hope  and  love,  those  admirable  forces  which  help  us, 
poor  human  beings  as  we  are,  to  accomplish  miracles, 
for  it  is  man  always  who  goes  to  the  mountain. 

There  are  three  sanctuaries  where  thinkers  may  study 
miracles :  Lourdes,  Valle  di  Pompeii,  at  the  foot  of 
Vesuvius,  and  Naples  Cathedral,  on  the  first  Saturday 
of  May,  on  the  nineteenth  of  September  and  on  the  six- 
teenth of  December. 

Lourdes !  Formerly  it  was  Salette  which  cured  peo- 
ple. Pilgrimages  are  still  made  there,  but  out  of  po- 
liteness, as  it  were,  for  it  has  been  eclipsed  by  Lourdes, 
which  is  now  the  great  miraculous  sanctuary  of  France. 
The  Virgin's  favours  have  moved  to  another  place,  as 
everything  does  move  to  another  place,  even  the  axis 


330          THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

of  our  planet.  The  Fau  scenery,  with  its  mountain 
torrents,  is  more  beautiful  than  that  of  the  little  village 
of  Isere.  It  is  more  easy  of  access  and  it  is  within  the 
fashionable  zone  of  the  Pyrenees.  That  does  not  seem 
to  be  of  much  importance,  but  it  means  a  great  deal. 
"  Everything  concurs,"  the  secular  things  with  the  spir- 
itual ones,  and  the  spiritual  things  with  the  secular  ones. 

The  creation  of  this  sanctuary  came  about  in  the 
most  poetical  and  beautiful  way,  by  means  of  appari- 
tions of  the  Virgin.  I  have  just  been  reading  the  ac- 
count of  it  again,  in  the  Histoire  critique  by  Georges 
Bertrin,  an  account  in  which  one  feels  not  only  the  faith 
of  the  writer,  but  the  most  absolute  good  faith;  two 
things  which  one  docs  not  often  find  together.  His  ac- 
count, which  is  well  substantiated  and  very  orthodox, 
nevertheless  justifies  the  ideas  which  I  have  given  in 
my  preceding  pages.  This  is  not  the  first  time  that 
my  modernism  has  come  to  the  same  kind  of  conclusion 
and  this  always  gives  me  a  delightful  sensation  of  tri- 
umph. 

I  have  now  before  me  an  excellent  portrait  of  Berna- 
dette  Soubirous,  the  unconscious  creator  of  Lourdes. 
She  looks  about  sixteen  or  eighteen  and  her  eyes  are 
the  kind  of  eyes  which  see  visions.  If  they  only  used 
to  see  things  as  I  see  them,  I  should  be  very  much  sur- 
prised, for  they  are  bathed  in  light  of  a  special  kind, 
psychical  light,  perhaps.  She  was  a  delicate,  puny 
girl  and  just  when  she  was  at  a  critical  age,  she  hap- 
pened to  be  out-doors  one  day,  at  noon,  near  a  grotto 
which  was  covered  with  wild  rose  trees,  in  the  Mas- 
sabiellc  rocks  above  the  Pau  waterfalls.  She  saw  a 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  331 

beautiful  young  woman  standing  at  the  entrance  to  this 
grotto.  Bernadette  immediately  thought  it  was  the 
Virgin  and,  kneeling  down  instinctively,  she  drew  her 
chaplet  from  her  pocket  and  began  to  tell  her  beads. 
The  description  she  gave  of  this  unknown  person,  of 
whom  she  caught  a  glimpse  "  in  a  golden  cloud,"  must 
have  been  a  film  produced  in  her  frontal  lobes  by  some 
lithograph.  "  She  was  wearing  a  white  dress,"  we  read, 
"  tied  in  at  the  waist  by  a  blue  ribbon,  the  ends  of  which 
fell  on  her  dress,  nearly  to  her  feet.  On  her  head  was 
a  white  veil,  under  which  her  hair  could  scarcely  be 
seen.  She  wore  this  veil  turned  back  and  it  fell  over 
her  shoulders  down  to  below  her  waist.  Her  bare  feet 
were  partially  covered  by  the  folds  of  her  dress  and  on 
each  foot  was  a  gold  coloured  rose.  On  her  right  arm 
was  a  chaplet  of  white  beads,  the  gold  chain  of  which 
shone  like  the  golden  rose  on  her  feet." 

This  literary  description  must  have  been  translated 
and  arranged  by  some  one  of  the  craft,  as  Bernadette 
was  a  backward  child.  At  the  age  of  fourteen  she  could 
neither  read  nor  write.  She  goes  on  to  say :  "  The 
Lady  let  me  pray  by  myself;  she  told  the  beads  of  her 
chaplet,  but  she  did  not  speak.  It  was  only  at  the  end 
of  each  tenth  prayer  that  she  joined  with  me  in  saying 
'  Glory  be  to  the  Father,  to  the  Son  and  to  the  Holy 
Ghost.'  " 

If  I  am  not  mistaken,  this  is  a  little  arrangement  by 
some  theologian.  Theologians  are  the  spiritual  en- 
gineers of  religion.  Their  mission  is  to  watch  over  the 
logic  of  dogmas,  so  that  there  may  be  the  necessary 
cohesion.  In  reality,  Bernadette  must  have  said  that 


332    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

"  the  Lady  was  telling  her  beads,'*  because  she  herself 
knew  scarcely  any  other  prayers.  She  was  not  suffi- 
ciently developed  to  have  understood  that  Mary  could 
not  decently  have  saluted  herself  and  repeated  the 
"  Hail  Mary ! "  in  her  own  honour.  In  St.  Dominic's 
vision,  it  is  the  child  Jesus  who  offers  him  the  rosary, 
but  there  are  pictures  which  are  more  naift  and  in 
these,  the  Virgin  offers  it  herself. 

I  once  heard  a  catechist  asking  a  little  girl  of  eleven 
years  old  one  of  those  stupid  questions  which  are  usual : 
"  What  was  the  Virgin  doing  when  the  Angel  of  the 
Annunciation  appeared  to  her?  "  The  child,  who  was 
nevertheless  intelligent,  answered  promptly :  "  She  was 
kneeling  in  front  of  her  crucifix  praying."  None  of  the 
other  children  of  the  little  flock  budged  on  hearing 
this  enormity,  and  never  saw  the  silliness  of  it  until  the 
priest  pointed  it  out  to  them. 

Bernadette  saw  eighteen  of  these  apparitions  and  all 
this  threw  her  into  fits  of  ecstasy  and  transfigured  her, 
making  her  look  wonderfully  beautiful.  One  dny,  "  the 
Lady  "  gave  her  this  message :  "  Tell  the  priests  to 
build  a  chapel  here."  Metaphysical  people  have  fre- 
quently created  centres  of  prayer  in  this  way.  This  is 
not  to  be  regretted,  as  it  is  in  this  way  that  we  have  a 
number  of  buildings  which  are  valuable  artistic  accumu- 
lators. In  another  of  these  trances,  the  girl  heard  a 
voice  saying:  "Go  and  drink  and  wash  yourself  in 
that  fountain."  There  was  neither  fountain  nor  water 
there;  but,  obeying  the  instructions  of  the  Virgin,  she 
scratched  the  earth  away  *n  a  certain  place  nnd  water 
came.  It  was  not  clear,  and  was  even  muddy  at  first, 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  333 

but  it  gradually  became  clear  and  it  increased  so  much 
in  volume  that  it  became  the  spring  which  now  feeds 
"  the  nine  pools  for  sick  people."  If  the  Lourdes  sanc- 
tuary was  necessary,  why  should  Bernadette  not  have 
been  inspired  to  look  for  and  to  find  the  miraculous 
water,  just  as  the  poet,  the  artist  or  the  inventor  is 
inspired  to  discover  sources  of  psychical  emotion,  of 
beauty  or  of  fresh  energies?  It  seems  to  me  the  most 
natural  thing  in  the  world  and  all  phenomena  are  of 
the  same  order. 

As  I  have  said,  visions  always  reflect  something  of 
the  epoch  in  which  they  take  place.  The  following  epi- 
sode is  another  proof  of  this.  Three  years  previously, 
Pius  IX  had  proclaimed  that  the  Virgin  Mary  was  born 
immaculate,  free  from  original  sin.  No  dogma,  per- 
haps, had  ever  met  with  such  resistance  or  given  rise  to 
so  much  controversy.  It  was  discussed  everywhere. 
Many  priests,  and  very  good  Catholics  too,  considered 
that  this  was  going  very  far  in  the  metaphysical  do- 
main. Europe,  and  more  especially  France,  had  had 
this  on  the  brain  and  the  echo  of  it  all  was  still  in  the 
air.  Bernadette  belonged  to  a  pious  family  and  she 
had  heard  the  question  treated  in  the  pulpit  and  at  her 
catechism  lessons.  The  big  words  "  Immaculate  Con- 
ception," which  she  could  not  understand,  must  have 
given  her  the  impression  of  a  mystery.  In  the  duality 
produced  by  her  ecstasies,  she  heard  those  words  and 
she  gave  them  to  "  the  Lady,"  as  she  did  not  know  any 
finer  ones  to  give.  It  would  be  interesting  to  study, 
philosophically,  the  way  in  w1  'ch  Lourdes  acquired  its 
celebrity,  the  way  in  which  it  was  launched.  It  is  not 


334          THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

enough  that  a  spring  of  water  was  discovered  there. 
We  ought  to  know  how  the  extraordinary  properties 
of  this  water  were  revealed  and  we  ought  to  have  the 
history  of  the  first  miracle.  However  all  that  may 
have  come  about,  this  Pyrenees  sanctuary  has  a  long 
list  of  cures  to  its  credit,  and  most  of  them  I  believe  to 
have  been  authentic  ones. 

For  a  cure  to  be  a  miracle,  the  Faculty  of  Medicine 
must  have  declared  that  the  patient  could  not  recover, 
and,  after  going  to  Lourdes  condemned  to  death,  this 
same  person  must  have  been  completely  cured,  leaving 
his  crutches  in  the  grotto  and  his  bandages  in  the  pool. 

What  doctor  has  not  had  the  disagreeable  surprise 
of  seeing  some  of  his  verdicts  modified  by  the  gods? 
Which  of  them  can  boast  of  thoroughly  understanding 
all  the  mysteries  of  our  spine  and  of  our  brain? 

I  neither  believe  in  spontaneous  generation,  nor  in 
the  instantaneity  of  things.  These  things  do  not  exist 
on  our  very  inferior  planet;  do  they  exist  elsewhere? 
I  do  not  know,  of  course.  When  a  chemist,  in  the 
depths  of  his  transmutations,  sees  some  new  gas  appear, 
it  is  because  this  existed  in  his  generative  ampoules.  I 
have  just  been  reading  the  account  of  several  instan- 
taneous cures  which  took  place  at  Lourdes.  They 
sound  very  real,  but  what  is  instantaneous  to  us  is  not 
so  for  Nature.  It  has  at  its  disposition  invisible  forces, 
unknown  to  us  as  yet,  which  go  on  quietly  rcsoldering 
bones,  repairing  tissues,  setting  free  marrow  that  has 
been  compressed  by  some  vertebra,  and  so  preparing 
what  we  childishly  call  "  the  miracle,"  a  miracle  which 
needed  certain  psychical  agents  of  Lourdes  in  order 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  335 

to  be  accomplished.  Believers  attribute  instantaneous 
cures  not  to  the  superhuman,  as  they  ought,  but  to  the 
supernatural,  to  the  immediate  intervention  of  God. 
Those  who  set  aside  the  supernatural  are  scientifically 
right,  as  this  would  be  exceeding  the  power  of  Nature 
and  that  could  not  be.  As  to  the  intervention  of  God, 
this  is  as  natural  as  the  intervention  of  solar  rays. 
Those  Terrestrians  who  deny  it  are  infirm,  deaf  and 
born  blind.  We  ought  to  endeavour  to  cure  them  by 
means  of  logical  and  common  sense  arguments. 

The  people  and  priests  believe  in  the  supernatural, 
because  they  know  nothing  at  all  about  the  natural. 
The  priests  know  nothing  yet  about  the  planet,  animals 
or  man.  They  therefore  speak  of  God  as  a  blind  man 
would  speak  of  light.  They  have  no  idea  of  the  play  of 
our  nervous  armature,  of  the  existence  of  the  fluids, 
the  currents  and  the  energies  which  act  on  us.  When 
medical  men  suggested  that  those  on  whom  miracles  -had 
been  wrought  might  have  been  neuropathic,  or  beings 
sensibilised  to  an  extreme  degree,  they  protested  vehe- 
mently, just  as  if  the  curing  of  neuropathic  patients 
were  not  the  most  difficult  of  miracles !  It  is  an  almost 
inconceivable  thing  that  they  are  still  incapable  of  real- 
ising the  physical  and  moral  effect  which  the  Lourdes 
pilgrimage  may  have  on  invalids.  These  invalids  be- 
long, as  a  rule,  to  the  class  of  provincial  people  in 
humble  circumstances.  For  months,  and  perhaps  years, 
they  had  been  shut  up  with  the  microbes,  bacilli  and 
bacteria  of  their  respective  diseases,  within  a  narrow, 
badly  ventilated  space,  and  sometimes  with  no  sunshine 
at  all.  One  fine  day,  the  currents  of  destiny  brought 


336    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

into  these  hells  on  earth  the  name  of  Lourdes  !  Lourdes 
meant  to  these  people  health  and  miracles !  Hope  acted 
so  powerfully  on  the  poor  doomed  creatures  that  they 
had  the  courage  to  start  on  the  necessary  journey. 
All  of  them  have  spoken  of  the  joy  they  felt  in  breath- 
ing fresh  air,  in  seeing,  even  from  the  train,  in  the 
midst  of  their  suffering,  fields  and  fresh  scenery.  For 
the  first  time,  they  came  out  of  themselves,  as  it  were, 
they  forgot  their  own  ills  in  their  sympathy  with  the 
ills  of  others,  and  they  must  have  felt  a  certain  conso- 
lation in  realising  that  they  were  not  the  only  suffering 
creatures  in  the  world.  In  these  trains  which  contain 
so  much  pain,  so  much  physical  ugliness,  I  am  sure  there 
must  be  waves  and  waves  of  wonderful  sentiments,  of 
heroism,  devotion,  faith  and  love.  These  psychical 
forces  must  have  a  beneficent  action  on  all  these  afflicted 
ones.  And  then,  too,  the  very  fact  of  being  pilgrims 
makes  them  each  feel  that  they  are  some  one  for  the 
first  time,  perhaps,  in  their  lives.  At  Lourdes,  they 
find  arms  to  carry  them,  gentle  hands  to  dress  their 
wounds,  and  kind,  consoling  words.  The  men  and 
women  who  are  to  tend  them  see  in  each  sick  person  the 
possibility  of  a  miracle  and  treat  them*,  at  once  as  elect. 
Then  come  the  immersions  in  the  pool.  The  shock  must 
be  such  for  the  whole  organism  that  it  may  cause  cer- 
tain contractions,  and  even  paralysis,  to  disappear. 
There  are  also  the  spiritual  emotions  of  the  various  re- 
ligious ceremonies.  These,  in  themselves,  are  so  touch- 
ing that  the  eyes  of  simple  spectators  are  npt  to  fill  with 
tears.  And  all  these  things  "  work  together  "  towards 
cures.  If  radiations  exist  in  our  motor  powerful 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  337 

enough  for  producing  instantaneity,  we  may  be  sure 
that  these  radiations  are  natural.  In  the  Middle  Ages, 
the  gramophone,  the  voice  without  the  man,  and  the 
cinematograph  would  have  been  considered  the  devil's 
work,  and  the  inventors  would  have  been  condemned  to 
torture  and  to  death.  Our  grandmothers  even  would 
have  considered  such  things  supernatural.  What  is  still 
to  us  a  miracle,  an  impossible  thing,  will  be  for  our  de- 
scendants, two  generations  later,  as  natural  as  wireless 
telegraphy. 

These  pilgrimages  must  do  good  to  people,  even  when 
they  are  not  cured.  Among  Christians,  a  Lourdes  pil- 
grim has  as  much  prestige  as  the  pilgrim  of  Mecca 
among  the  Mussulmans,  and  this  religious  feeling  prob- 
ably puts  into  activity  germs  of  progress  which  will 
bear  flower  and  fruit  in  future  life. 

A  few  days  ago,  I  saw  one  of  my  young  Protestant 
friends  who  had  just  returned  from  Lourdes.  He  had 
been  very  deeply  impressed  by  that  special  atmosphere 
created  by  the  concentrated  faith  of  an  important  pil- 
grimage and  by  the  words  repeated  in  chorus  by  hun- 
dreds of  voices :  "  Heal  our  dear  suffering  ones !  " 
The  French  words :  "  Guerissez  nos  chers  malades," 
sounded  to  him  like  "  Guerissez  nos  chairs  malades." 
His  artistic  mind  had  been  struck  by  the  psychical 
beauty  of  the  ceremony  and  he  had  been  greatly  aston- 
ished to  see  people  of  a  certain  class  bow  down  and  kiss 
the  ground.  I  can  quite  understand  that  they  should, 
as  it  is  an  Oriental  gesture.  With  a  shade  of  regret, 
after  describing  all  this  to  me,  he  said :  "  Protestant- 
ism will  never  work  miracles."  "  No,"  I  answered, 


338    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

"  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  would  tell  you  that,  as 
this  gift  was  bestowed  upon  it  by  Christ,  it  has  remained 
with  it  alone."  That  is  merely  religious  literature, 
though.  The  miracle  came  from  the  East,  from  the 
very  heart  of  the  sanctuaries  of  India,  and  the  Refor- 
mation, born  later  on  and  essentially  Western  and  intel- 
lectual, rejected  it.  The  Reformation  was,  as  I  have 
said,  the  stabiliser  of  the  human  mind.  Its  religion  is 
simple  and  strong,  much  stronger  than  ours,  but  it  has 
no  imagination,  no  symbols,  and  it  does  not  produce 
enough  spiritual  warmth  to  engender  the  "  miracle." 
The  walls  of  its  temple  are,  I  believe,  the  only  ones 
without  ex-votos.  That  does  not  matter  in  the  least, 
as  millions  of  its  adherents  live  very  well  without  all 
this.  It  would  be  terrible  if  we  had  Catholic  miracles 
and  Protestant  miracles.  May  God  preserve  us  from 
that! 

What  touched  my  young  friend  more  than  anything 
else  at  Lourdes  was  the  work  of  the  stretcher-bearers. 
These  men  do  not  choose  their  invalids.  They  go  to 
the  hotels  and  hospitals  and  ask  simply  if  there  is  any 
one  for  the  waters.  And  the  individual  they  carry 
away,  with  such  evident  kindliness  and  with  a  sort  of 
respect,  is  frequently  a  mere  human  wreck.  My  friend 
was  very  much  surprised  to  meet,  in  the  restaurant  of 
one  of  the  Biarritz  hotels,  one  of  these  gentleman 
stretcher-bearers,  wearing  a  flower  in  his  button-hole, 
his  hat  tilted  on  the  back  of  his  head  and  accompanied 
by  a  demi-mondaine.  This  was  a  trifle  disconcerting 
to  my  Calvinistic  friend,  who  was  not  accustomed  to 
these  sudden  moral  leaps,  so  frequent  with  Catholics. 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  339 

The  romantic  element  in  the  episode  appealed  to  him, 
though,  and  won  his  admiration.  I  explained  to  him 
that  the  young  man  was  probably  some  spoiled  child  of 
his  mother,  who  had  been  educated  by  the  Jesuits  and 
was  at  Lourdes  taking  a  conscience  cure,  and,  accord- 
ing to  my  way  of  thinking,  an  act  of  true  humanity 
may  redeem  a  multitude  of  transgressions. 

Thanks  to  a  sort  of  prescience,  perhaps,  I  have  al- 
ways been  curious  to  know  the  impressions  produced  on 
people  by  Lourdes.  I  have  questioned  numbers  of  per- 
sons of  different  nationality,  religion  and  social  stand- 
ing.1 This  impression  was  generally  a  good  one  during 
the  pilgrimage  season,  but,  during  the  dead  season,  the 
impression  was  distinctly  unfavourable.  The  stage  is 
then  empty,  there  is  nothing  left  but  the  beautiful 
natural  scenery  of  the  background,  whilst  all  the  tricks 
and  ropes  of  the  commercial  exploitation  are  visible. 
On  the  signs  of  certain  shops,  the  owner's  name  is  given 
with  the  addition:  "uncle  (or  cousin)  of  Bernadette 
Soubirous."  I  have  heard  very  ardent  Catholics  re- 
joicing that  the  Church  does  not  insist  on  the  belief 
in  Lourdes.  The  "  White  Fathers,"  I  feel  sure,  have 
instituted  excellent  charitable  works  with  the  "  miracle 
money,"  but  they  use  a  great  deal  of  it  to  embellish  the 
Pyrenees  sanctuary,  in  a  very  modern  manner,  for  the 
sake  of  attracting  tourists.  These  embellishments  are 
always  sanctified  by  means  of  a  cross,  or  a  symbol  of 
some  kind,  and  so  the  face  is  saved.  But  do  not  let  us 
cavil  about  all  this.  Lourdes  has  cured  people  and  it 
will  probably  continue  to  cure  people  for  a  long  time 
yet.  Since  it  exists,  it  is  necessary  to  Life.  If  I 


340    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

should  learn,  to-morrow,  that  it  was  all  a  colossal  fraud, 
I  should  not  be  at  all  scandalised,  but  should  begin  at 
once  to  study  the  miracle  of  illusiomsm. 

The  miraculous  sanctuary  of  Valle  di  Pompeii! 
There  was  no  Bernadette  Soubirous  there,  and  there 
were  no  apparitions !  A  mere  lawyer  was  the  inter- 
mediary and  this  is  certainly  rather  extraordinary.  I 
heard  about  this  religious  centre  in  a  rather  curious 
way.  I  had  been  to  Pompeii  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago 
and,  one  fine  day,  I  was  led  back  there.  I  found  it  as 
changed  as  a  dead  city  could  be.  It  was  entirely 
cleared  and  better  kept  than  Naples,  the  living  city. 
The  cleanness  of  its  streets,  the  restoration  of  certain 
of  its  houses  made  the  catastrophe  seem  more  recent 
and  more  touching.  On  reaching  the  ancient  amphi- 
theatre, I  stood  on  a  part  of  the  wall,  in  order  to  take 
a  look  down  and  endeavour  to  discover  something  of 
the  soul  of  the  ill-fated  valley.  My  eyes  were  now  older, 
but  they  could  see  things  better,  and  I  uttered  an  ex- 
clamation of  surprise  on  perceiving,  against  the  horizon, 
a  dome  which  appeared  to  me  immense  and  which  was 
ablaze  with  gold  in  the  sunshine. 

"What  is  that?"  I  asked  my  cicerone.  "I  do  not 
remember  ever  having  seen  a  church  there." 

"  It  used  not  to  exist,"  I  was  told.  "  It  is  the  sanc- 
tuary of  the  Virgin  of  the  Rosary.  Five  millions  were 
spent  on  it,  and  its  treasury  of  jewels  and  valuable  ob- 
jects is  estimated  at  four  millions." 

"  I  should  never  have  thought  there  was  enough  faith 
in  Italy  for  that,"  I  remarked. 

"Oh,  we  are  not  silly  enough  (tanto  minchioni)   to 


341 

spend  so  much  on  miracles,"  answered  my  guide,  with 
that  Neapolitan  smile  which  is  so  expressive  of  sly 
philosophy.  "  The  money  has  come  from  France,  Bel- 
gium, Austria  and  South  America." 

"  And  who  founded  this  sanctuary  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  A  lawyer.'* 

"  A  lawyer ! "  I  repeated,  in  amazement. 

"  Yes,  Signora,  a  certain  Bartolo  Longo.  It  is  he 
who  founded  everything  and  contrived  everything,  to- 
gether with  the  Madonna." 

I  could  not  help  smiling  at  the  thought  of  this  lawyer 
contriving  with  the  Madonna.  One  has  to  go  to  Naples 
to  hear  such  an  expression  and  it  is  well  worth  the 
j  ourney. 

"  Thirty  years  ago,"  continued  my  guide,  "  the  val- 
ley of  Pompeii  was  almost  deserted.  It  was  only  in- 
habited by  peasants  who  were  half  wild  and  who  had  to 
protect  themselves  from  brigands  and  wizards.  At 
present  it  has  four  thousand  inhabitants,  a  railway  sta- 
tion, a  police  station,  an  observatory  for  keeping  watch 
on  that,"  continued  my  guide,  pointing  to  Vesuvius. 
"  It  has  an  orphanage,  too,  and  an  Institution  for  the 
children  of  prisoners." 

"  For  the  children  of  prisoners ! "  I  exclaimed. 
"  What  a  beautiful  idea !  " 

"  Yes,  very  beautiful  .  .  .  assai  bella." 

"  Your  Virgin  of  the  Holy  Rosary  must  have  per- 
formed many  miracles  ?  " 

"  Yes,  they  say  she  has.  She  cured  people  who  could 
obtain  nothing  from  Lourdes.  No  one  knows  why  (non 
si  sa  perche)  !  There  is  one  miracle,  though,  that  she 


342     THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

has  not  been  able  to  perform,  and  that  is  to  make  the 
priests  and  monks  agree.  They  quarrel  about  the 
money  that  is  given  and  the  lawyer,  too,  wants  his  share 
for  the  Orphanage.  Folks  are  all  living  like  cats  and 
dogs  in  the  country  round.  Some  of  them  are  for  the 
priests,  others  for  the  monks  and  others  again  for  Bur- 
tolo  Longo." 

"  And  whose  side  do  you  take  ?  "  I  asked. 

"The  lawyer's.  Folks  chatter  (ciarlono)  but  things 
speak  for  themselves.  The  things  of  Valle  di  Pompeii 
show  what  he  has  done.  If  he  has  worked  for  himself, 
he  has  worked  for  a  great  many  families  as  well.  All 
the  intriguers  (facondieri)  cannot  say  as  much  for  them- 
selves." 

This  conversation  made  me  want  to  know  more.  I 
felt  that  there  was  some  romance  hidden  here.  This 
extraordinary  lawyer  interested  me,  because  he  had 
thought  of  the  children  of  the  prisoners,  and  there  are 
so  many  prisoners  in  Naples.  I  made  enquiries  on  all 
sides,  but  met  with  either  sullen  hostility,  or  with  abso- 
lute indifference.  The  idea  of  the  miracles  prevented 
all  unbelievers  from  putting  their  trust  in  Bartolo 
Longo's  good  faith,  whilst  the  attention  that  was  paid 
to  the  material  side  spoilt  everything  for  the  believers. 
At  that  time  in  my  life  I  was  not  interested  in  sanctu- 
aries and  I  had  no  idea  that  I  ever  should  be  interested 
in  them.  I  came  away  without  visiting  Valle  di  Pom- 
peii, but  the  guide's  conversation  did  its  little  occult 
work.  When  I  was  back  in  Rome,  I  met  a  woman  of 
the  best  Neapolitan  society  at  a  reception  given  by  the 
sculptor  Ezechiel.  I  talked  to  her  about  Valle  di  Pom- 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  343 

peii  and  my  curiosity  concerning  it.  She  made  things 
clear  to  me  at  once  and,  for  my  further  edification,  sent 
me  the  history  of  the  sanctuary  written  by  its  founder. 

This  history  is  a  valuable  document  for  the  thinker 
who  is  interested  in  the  weaving  of  this  world's  events. 
It  is  scrupulously  truthful  and  of  such  childish  naivete 
that  it  lets  us  see  the  play  of  Life  in  all  this,  and  even 
the  wires  by  which  everything  is  worked.  With  the 
most  unconscious  determinism,  Bartolo  Longo  believed 
himself  to  be  led,  and  absolutely  inspired,  by  a  divine 
.power  which  I  should  call  Providence,  the  gods,  Nature, 
God,  and  which  he  believed  to  be  "  The  Virgin  of  the 
Rosary."  This  personage  of  the  metaphysical  dream 
was  no  doubt  in  harmony  with  his  mentality.  He  had 
to  believe  in  her,  as  he  was  to  found  an  important  work, 
and  he  was  a  weak  man. 

Italian  lawyers  are,  as  a  rule,  curious  specimens  and 
are  unlike  those  of  any  other  country,  but  Bartolo 
Longo's  originality  was  of  a  rare  and  supreme  kind, 
for  he  was  a  mystic,  and  belonged  to  the  Tertian  Order 
of  St.  Dominic.  He  was  a  religious  neurasthenic  and 
monomaniac  who  believed  himself  in  danger  of  damna- 
tion. He  had  married  Countess  Eusco  and,  thanks  to 
a  kind  of  snobbism,  he  always  speaks  of  her  as  "  The 
Countess."  She  owned  a  house  and  some  land  at  Valle 
di  Pompeii.  He  used  to  go  there  from  time  to  time,  and 
this  desolate  spot,  near  the  ruins  of  the  Roman  Ter- 
rienniere,  seemed  very  little  calculated  to  cure  his 
melancholy.  It  was  there,  nevertheless,  that  he  was  to 
find  his  "  Damascus  road."  That,  it  appears  to  me, 
was  the  first  of  those  extraordinary  acts  which  Nature 


344     THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

was  to  work  in  him,  and  by  means  of  him,  and  which  he 
called  by  the  name  of  "  miracle." 

One  day,  when  strolling  along  in  a  wood  named  Ar- 
paja,  believed  to  be  still  inhabited  by  the  Harpies,  he 
was  seized  with  one  of  those  fits  of  religious  despair 
when  he  believed  himself  to  be  the  victim  chosen  by 
Satan.  The  following  is  his  account,  told  in  his  own 
words :  "  Suddenly,"  he  says,  "  I  stopped  short.  I 
felt  suffocated  and  thought  my  heart  must  burst.  In 
the  midst  of  my  distress,  I  heard  a  voice  murmur  in  my 
ear  words  which  I  had  read  myself  and  which  a  dead 
friend  of  mine  had  often  repeated  to  me :  *  If  thou  art 
seeking  thy  salvation,  propagate  the  Rosary.  The 
promise  of  Mary  is  that  "  whosoever  shall  propagate 
the  Rosary  shall  be  saved ! "  These  words  were  like 
a  flash  of  lightning  which  cleared  away  the  gloom  for 
me.  I  looked  up,  stretched  out  my  hands  towards 
heaven  and  cried  out,  addressing  the  Virgin :  *  If  it 
be  true  that  thou  hast  promised  St.  Dominic  that  whoso- 
ever shall  propagate  the  Rosary  shall  be  saved,  then  I 
shall  be  saved,  for  I  will  not  leave  this  Pompeii  district 
before  instituting  the  Rosary  here.'  A  distant  bell 
rang  out  the  midday  Angelus.  I  bowed  down  and  re- 
peated the  prayer  which  thousands  of  faithful  hearts 
were  then  offering  to  Mary." 

Oh,  Nature,  divine  force,  what  things  you  have  put, 
in  germ,  into  this  little  incident!  After  six  centuries, 
St.  Dominic's  dream  was  to  serve,  in  order  to  create  a 
fresh  centre  of  spiritual  life  in  the  valley  of  Vesuvius, 
opposite  that  Mount  Gauro,  where  legend  places  the 
apparition  of  the  Archangel  St.  Michael.  We  see, 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  345 

therefore,  that  nothing  is  lost,  neither  thoughts  nor 
even  dreams.  They  remain  in  the  soul  of  the  Earth, 
in  order  to  produce  other  thoughts  —  other  dreams. 

Bartolo  Longo  believed  that  he  had  found  the  way 
to  escape  damnation  and  he  did  not  intend  to  let  this 
opportunity  slip.  "  Whosoever  shall  propagate  the 
Rosary  shall  be  saved."  These  words  were  the  life- 
buoy which  Providence  threw  out  to  prevent  him  from 
foundering  in  madness.  He  seized  it,  clung  to  it  and, 
for  the  next  thirty  years,  it  kept  him  afloat  and  en- 
abled him  to  accomplish  truly  extraordinary  things.  I 
do  not  know  whether  his  story  is  translated,  but  I  should 
like  all  my  readers  who  think  to  be  able  to  read  it. 

To  institute  the  Rosary  in  the  homes  of  uneducated 
peasants,  who  scarcely  knew  the  "  Hail  Mary  "  even, 
who  neither  had  a  crucifix,  religious  pictures  nor  sym- 
bols in  their  wretched  dwellings,  was  not  an  easy  thing. 
Bartolo  Longo  began  by  distributing  medals  and  chap- 
lets.  These  were  accepted  rather  for  the  sake  of  their 
metal  mounts  than  for  their  spiritual  value.  He  then 
went  from  cottage  to  cottage  repeating :  "  Whoso- 
ever shall  propagate  the  Rosary  is  saved."  The  prom- 
ise of  salvation  on  such  cheap  terms  did  not  fail  to 
make  an  impression  on  some  minds.  The  Valle  di  Pom- 
peii Church  was,  all  that  time,  a  kind  of  dirty  shed,  all 
cracked  and  likely  to  fall  into  ruins.  He  put  up,  in 
this  church,  a  little  lithograph  of  the  Virgin  of  the 
Rosary,  which  he  had  had  over  his  own  bed.  The  peo- 
ple he  gathered  round  it,  for  the  reciting  of  the  chaplet, 
were,  I  expect,  chiefly  old  women  and  children.  That 
did  not  matter,  the  little  nucleus  was  formed.  He  then 


346    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

remembered  that  these  peasants,  barbarous  as  they  still 
were,  had  an  innate  tenderness  for  their  dead.  They 
did  not  like  having  their  friends  buried  without  being 
accompanied  to  the  grave  by  a  religious  procession,  as 
in  the  neighbouring  villages.  The  lawyer,  thereupon, 
had  the  brilliant  idea  of  establishing  a  religious  asso- 
ciation, the  members  of  which  should  render  this  homage 
to  any  of  their  fellow  members  who  died.  This  little 
association  was  really  the  first  layer  of  stones  of  the 
Valle  di  Pompeii  temple.  The  little  picture  of  the  Ma- 
donna was  replaced  by  one  which  cost  as  much  as  three 
francs.  It  represented  the  Virgin  giving  the  chaplet 
to  St.  Rosa  and  the  child  Jesus  to  St.  Dominic.  It 
appears  that  these  three  metaphysical  persons  were 
hideous.  This  picture,  which  was  to  be  exhibited  for 
the  veneration  of  the  faithful,  arrived  the  evening  be- 
fore a  festival  which  had  been  announced  by  loud  trum- 
pet blasts.  It  arrived  by  the  messenger  cart  and  on 
the  top  of  some  manure  which  the  man  happened  to  be 
transporting  that  day.  Oh,  Providence,  what  an  ador- 
able romancer  you  are! 

In  this  valley,  which  had  hitherto  been  so  forsaken 
and  where  all  gaiety  was  unknown,  there  were  from 
henceforth  fetes,  fireworks  and  music.  Then  came  mis- 
sionaries and,  in  the  religious  world,  there  was  some- 
thing quite  new :  "  The  Virgin  of  the  Rosary  Society." 
A  church  was  needed  in  connection  with  the  Society 
and  a  subscription  was  opened.  The  amount  of  this 
subscription  was  a  halfpenny  a  month.  Bartolo 
Longo's  wife,  "  the  Countess,"  also  belonged  to  the 
Tertian  Order  of  St.  Dominic.  She  was  full  of  en- 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  347 

thusiasm  for  her  husband's  dream,  and  all  the  more  so 
as  she  had  been  born  at  Valle  di  Pompeii  and  had  in- 
herited land  there  from  her  family.  She  soon  inter- 
ested Neapolitan  society  in  the  idea,  and  pious  gifts 
began  to  flow  in.  Then  came  the  consecration  and, 
after  this,  the  Virgin  of  the  Rosary  performed  her  first 
miracle.  The  following  is  the  miracle  in  all  its  naivete: 
A  young  girl  of  Naples,  Clorinda  Lucarelli,  at  the 
critical  age  of  twelve,  was  troubled  with  epileptic  fits. 
She  was  an  orphan  and  was  being  brought  up  by  an 
aunt  who  adored  her.  The  most  celebrated  doctors  had 
declared  her  to  be  incurable,  as  they  always  do  patients 
of  this  kind.  The  Lourdes  image,  at  San  Nicola  di 
Tolentino,  had  been  deaf  to  all  prayers.  On  the  3rd 
of  February,  the  poor  child  writhed  in  convulsions  from 
morning  to  night  and  then  from  night  to  morning 
again.  She  was  quite  unconscious  and  it  seemed  prob- 
able that  she  would  not  recover.  "  The  Countess  "  paid 
a  visit  to  Madame  Lucarelli  that  day,  and  spoke  to  her 
of  the  subject  which  interested  her  beyond  anything  else, 
the  Pompeii  work.  Madame  Lucarelli  immediately  felt 
a  ray  of  hope  within  her,  and  this  was  the  first  phase 
of  the  phenomenon.  She  promised,  spontaneously, 
that,  if  the  Virgin  of  the  Rosary  cured  her  niece,  she 
herself  would  set  off  to  beg  for  the  new  church.  This 
was  the  second  phase.  On  the  13th  of  February,  the 
day  when  the  restored  image  of  the  holy  Rosary  was 
exhibited  on  the  altar,  Clorinda  was  cured.  This  was 
the  third  phase  and  the  image  was  proclaimed  to  be 
miraculous.  It  is  only  the  first  miracle  which  costs 
anything  and,  suggestion  doing  its  work,  others  fol- 


348     THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

lowed.  The  subscription  of  one  halfpenny  a  month 
was  swallowed  up  in  the  stream  of  offerings  which  now 
came  in,  and  it  was  not  a  modest  church,  but  a  veritable 
temple  which  rose  from  the  earth.  The  various  archi- 
tectural difficulties  are  quite  epic  and  also  the  suc- 
cessive restoration  of  the  miraculous  image  and  the 
transformation  of  St.  Rosa  into  St.  Catherine  of  Sienna. 
Bartolo  Longo  is  not  in  the  least  afraid  of  disenchant- 
ing his  readers.  He  tells  all  this  with  an  artlessness 
which  is  both  comic  and  most  refreshing. 

It  seems  as  though  some  of  the  personages  of  the 
metaphysical  dream  are  destined  to  be  more  renowned 
than  others.  The  Madonna  of  Pompeii  very  soon  began 
to  draw  pilgrims  and  her  sanctuary  acquired  wealth  in 
the  most  extraordinary  way.  The  founder  of  all  this 
describes  the  splendour  of  the  miraculous  image  with 
childish  pride.  The  sanctuary  had  become  a  casket  of 
precious  stones.  Without  any  offence  to  the  worthy 
lawyer,  it  seems  to  me  that  all  this  was  in  the  worst 
taste,  as  Catholic  symbols  always  are  in  Naples.  I 
cannot  forgive  myself  for  not  having  seen  the  pearl 
which  adorns  the  right  ear  of  the  Immaculate  Virgin, 
and  the  sandal  of  her  left  foot,  which  was  set  with  gems. 
This  feminine  taste  for  jewellery  which  the  Virgin  was 
supposed  to  have  is  very  curious. 

The  work  to  which  Bartolo  Longo  devoted  thirty 
years  developed  in  a  way  that  was  beyond  all  his  con- 
ceptions. In  an  address  to  those  whom  he  calls  his 
"  sisters  and  brothers,"  he  says,  not  without  some  bit- 
terness, that,  the  Pope,  having  asked  him  to  cede  the 
temple  of  Valle  di  Pompeii  to  the  Holy  See,  he  has  done 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  349 

this  as  a  blindly  obedient  Christian,  thus  renouncing  all 
rights  over  the  sanctuary  which  he  had  hitherto  pos- 
sessed, thanks  to  the  "  apostolic  briefs  of  Louis  XIII." 
Further  on,  he  tells  us  how  the  miracle  money  had  been 
employed.  "  Without  any  fixed  income,"  he  says, 
"  without  any  grant  either  from  the  municipality  or  the 
ministry,  we  spend  from  ten  to  fifteen  thousand  francs 
a  week,  we  help  more  than  four  hundred  families,  we 
give  work  to  hundreds  of  artisans  and  others,  we  pro- 
vide for  a  hundred  and  thirty-five  orphans  and  a  hun- 
dred sons  of  prisoners.  On  Saturdays,  not  one  half- 
penny remains  in  our  cash-box,  and  the  following  Sat- 
urday money  is  there  again  to  pay  for  everything. 
Does  not  this  show  that  Providence  exists  ?  "  Certainly 
it  does.  Providence  is  since  we  are. 

Bartolo  Longo,  like  millions  of  individuals,  had  never 
observed  the  play  of  Life,  the  play  which  consists  in 
drawing  the  greatest  from  the  smallest  at  the  cost  of 
continual  effort  and  struggle.  When  he  saw  what  had 
come  out  of  his  poor,  empty  hands,  he  gives  us,  in  all 
good  faith,  his  work  as  an  irrefutable  proof  of  the 
supernatural.  It  is,  on  the  contrary,  naturalissima, 
in  perfect  harmony  with  the  laws  that  we  know,  but, 
like  all  the  works  of  Terrestrians,  it  was  not  his  work 
—  but  that  of  the  gods  —  and  that  again  is  natural. 

I  regret  immensely  that  I  did  not  pay  a  visit  to  the 
Western  sanctuary  and  to  its  founder.  At  all  events, 
a  very  beautiful  flm  of  it  has  remained  in  my  brain,  the 
one  taken  from  the  amphitheatre  of  the  Terrienniere 
in  ruins,  that  of  the  valley  bounded  on  the  north  by 
Vesuvius,  on  the  south  by  Mount  Gauro,  a  valley  of 


350     THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

infinite  sadness,  bathed  in  the  light  of  Dante's  dreams. 
In  the  horizon,  a  dome  emerges,  a  new  dazzling  looking 
dome  which  throws  out  a  beam  of  fresh  life.  When  I 
see  this  film  again,  at  the  back  of  my  forehead,  or  when 
I  see  material  and  spiritual  force  face  to  face,  it  seems 
to  me  that  I  hear  a  dialogue  between  the  implacable 
volcano  and  the  little  sanctuary. 

"  I  can  destroy  you,  some  day,"  says  the  volcano. 

"  You  can  change  my  face,  but  you  cannot  destroy 
me,"  answers  the  little  sanctuary,  "  as  I  am  a  fragment 
of  Him  who  created  you.  When  you  have  devastated 
me,  my  stones  will  speak,  like  those  of  Pompeii,  my 
elder  sister,  and  we  shall  always  be  the  dead  who  live." 

In  all  sanctuaries,  those  of  the  East  and  those  of  the 
West,  a  whole  crowd  of  reprehensible  and  unworthy  acts 
take  place.  For  instance,  the  Turks  are  obliged  to 
prevent  Christians  from  killing  each  other  around 
Christ's  tomb.  We  must  neither  be  surprised  nor  scan- 
dalised at  this.  It  is  the  fermentation  taking  place 
there,  just  as  it  does  in  the  vats  at  the  time  of  the 
vintage,  and  Life  will  always  come  out  of  this  more 
purified. 

There  is  a  metaphysical  circle,  as  it  were,  around 
Vesuvius,  and  this  is  most  curious.  On  Mount  Gauro, 
there  was  the  apparition  of  St.  Michael ;  at  Valle  di 
Pompeii  there  were  the  miracles  wrought  by  the  Virgin 
of  the  Rosary ;  at  Naples  itself,  we  have  the  liquefaction 
of  St.  Janvier's  blood.  Was  all  this  faith  engendered 
by  fear?  That  is  quite  possible. 

St.  Janvier  was  one  of  Diocletian's  martyrs.  Years 
later,  under  Constantine,  his  body  was  brought  back  to 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  351 

Naples.  His  blood,  it  appeared,  was  still  living  and  it 
liquefied.  God  alone  knows  how  this  miracle  was 
brought  about  by  the  makers  of  legends,  but  it  was 
taken  as  a  visible  sign  of  the  protection  accorded  by 
the  Saint  to  the  city  which  was  so  dangerously  situated. 
Like  Vesuvius,  it  remains  in  activity  and  is,  I  believe, 
the  only  Christian  miracle  which  still  takes  place.  In 
the  twentieth  century  it  meets  with  the  same  credulity 
as  it  did  in  the  sixth!  Fear  is  a  great  generator  of 
faith. 

One  day,  I  was  present  at  this  great  mystery  in  the 
Naples  Cathedral.  I  felt  the  atmosphere  charged  with 
a  special  kind  of  electricity  and  I  was  terrified  at  the 
expression  of  the  crowd.  The  people's  eyes  seemed  to 
be  starting  out  of  their  sockets,  their  faces  wrere  stream- 
ing with  perspiration  and  tears.  Some  of  the  faces 
were  very  beautiful,  others  hideous.  Their  lips  seemed 
ready  for  prayer  or  for  blasphemy.  There  is  no  doubt 
that  if  the  hope  of  this  crowd  had  been  deceived,  St. 
Janvier  and  his  priests  would  have  had  a  bad  moment. 
When  the  people  have  finally  left  their  childhood  behind 
them,  when  they  can  look  their  enemies  and  truth  in 
the  face,  in  a  philosophical  way,  the  shrine  will  give  up 
its  secret,  and  we  shall  know  the  name  of  that  compo- 
sition which  becomes  liquefied,  not  by  means  of  prayers, 
but  by  the  heat  of  the  ambient  air  and  by  the  gesture 
of  the  benediction  repeated,  as  it  is,  over  and  over  again. 
In  the  meantime,  blessed  be  he  who  invented  this  won- 
der, since  it  was  to  serve  in  comforting  thousands  of 
human  creatures.  The  real  miracle  is  the  miracle  it- 
self—  the  more  false  it  is  the  more  true  is  it  that  this 


352    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

one,  like  all  the  others,  has  helped  forward  and  is  help- 
ing forward  Life. 

And  on  the  screen  of  my  mind  an  old  memory  comes 
back,  something  which  made  a  great  impression  on  me, 
an  impression  that  has  never  been  effaced.  Many  years 
ago,  in  Italy,  I  used  to  visit  a  girl  of  humble  class, 
whom  I  had  known  when  she  was  very  beautiful,  healthy 
and  extremely  coquettish.  She  was  now  suffering  from 
a  horrible  complaint,  the  marrow  of  her  bones  was  dis- 
eased. With  ever  increasing  sorrow  and  stupid,  unjust 
anger,  I  watched,  without  understanding  it,  Nature's 
work  of  destruction  on  this  poor  girl.  It  was  slower 
and  more  cruel  than  I  can  possibly  describe.  One 
afternoon,  I  found  her  mother,  and  an  aunt  who  was 
helping  to  nurse  her,  with  their  eyes  swollen  with  weep- 
ing. They  told  me  that  the  last  sacrament  had  just 
been  administered.  I  had  a  pang  at  my  heart  when  I 
saw  the  chest  of  drawers  covered  with  a  little  white 
cloth,  on  which  had  been  placed  two  bright  candlesticks 
containing  some  wretched  little  wax  tapers  and  a  cruci- 
fix. The  room  was  full  of  that  faint,  warm  odour,  a 
mystic  odour,  which  the  priest  brings  with  him  and 
leaves  with  the  dying.  Assunta,  or  what  remained  of 
her,  was  dozing.  She  was  a  mere  skeleton,  but  a  beau- 
tiful skeleton.  Her  magnificent  hair  had  been  cut  off, 
as  every  day  her  head  was  covered  with  vermin.  Her 
short  hair,  of  a  reddish  brown  colour,  looked  like  a  halo 
round  her  thin  face.  An  invisible  hand  had  hollowed 
the  temples  and  brow,  chiselled  the  nostrils,  made  the 
ears  and  lips  thinner  and  taken  from  them  their  colour, 
but  this  same  hand  had,  like  a  true  Artist,  respected  the 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  353 

beautiful,  classical  lines  of  the  features.  She  looked 
like  an  angel  such  as  the  Primitives  loved  to  paint. 
The  room  was  very  large  and  hygienically  bare.  There 
were  two  windows  opening  on  to  an  old  garden,  from 
which  came  the  twittering  of  spring-time  and  air  that 
was  laden  with  sap  and  with  the  scent  of  the  acacia 
trees.  I  had  managed  to  seat  myself  without  disturb- 
ing the  invalid.  Presently  she  opened  her  eyes  and,  to 
my  great  surprise,  I  saw  that  she  was  smiling.  After 
thanking  me  prettily  for  the  oranges  which  it  was  my 
delight  to  take  her,  as  she  enjoyed  them  up  to  the  very 
last,  she  said: 

"  Sa  —  signora  —  do  you  know  that  I  have  made  a 
vow  to  the  Madonna  to-day  ?  " 

"  Really  ?  "  I  answered. 

"  Yes,  I  see  that  I  must  die,  but  when  they  are  put- 
ting me  in  the  ground,  supposing  that  she  brought  me 
to  life  again!  She  could  do  this,  could  she  not?  " 

I  was  so  much  taken  aback,  that  I  could  find  no  words, 
and  so  I  only  nodded. 

"  Well,  I  have  promised  her  that,  if  she  will  perform 
this  miracle,  I  will  wear  black  all  the  rest  of  my  life 
and  that  I  will  never  dance  again,  never  again ! " 

The  poor  girl  uttered  these  words  as  though  she  were 
making  an  immense  sacrifice. 

I  understood  then  why  the  priests  let  people  believe 
in  miracles  and  I,  myself,  found  some  lying  words  with 
which  to  encourage  this  faith  that  seemed  to  me  sacred. 

Assunta  died  the  following  morning  "  like  a  light  that 
was  blown  out,"  said  her  mother  to  me. 

"  It  was  God  that  blew  on  her,"  I  added. 


354  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

"  No,  Signora  —  it  is  the  devil  who  takes  children 
from  their  poor  mothers.  God  takes  them  away  from 
him  though  and  puts  them  in  His  Paradise  —  and  so 
punishes  the  devil." 

According  to  the  girl's  wish,  it  was  her  fiance  who 
placed  her  in  her  coffin.  With  his  voice  full  of  tears, 
he  told  me  that  "  her  bones  sounded  like  dry  wood,"  and 
then  he  murmured  very  tenderly,  "  blessed  bones."  In 
Italy,  love  sometimes  makes  a  poet  out  of  a  man  of  the 
people. 

It  is  the  faith  in  miracles  which  creates  hope  stronger 
than  death,  and  which  had  put  into  the  dying  girl's 
eyes  that  ray  of  joy  which  I  shall  never  forget  and 
which  I  can  see  now.  Do  not  let  us  despise  it  for  it 
serves  to  create  the  "  state  of  grace  "  for  the  humble 
of  this  world. 

Our  descendants  will  laugh  at  the  ignorance  of  our 
childhood,  but  their  adult  age  has  been  borne  along  by 
our  childhood  and  their  path  prepared  by  it.  I  hope 
that  their  thinkers  may  recognise  that.  The  old  be- 
liefs begin  to  tickle  the  humour  of  the  present  gener- 
ation. I  have  just  come  across  two  Christmas  cards 
which  are  irresistibly  droll  and  very  characteristic. 
They  did  not  come  from  frivolous,  disrespectful  France, 
but  from  the  country  of  the  Bible.  They  were  from 
England  and  from  America  and,  I  must  own,  that  this 
rather  surprised  me.  On  one  of  the  cards  is  a  huge 
apple  that  has  been  bitten.  The  teeth  marks  of  Adam 
and  Eve  are  visible.  Underneath  is  written :  "  The 
cause  of  it  all."  I  laughed  heartily  as  I  looked  at  it 
and  then  I  said  aloud:  "Heaven  be  thanked  for  that 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  355 

bite,  as  our  hope  is  the  result  of  it."  The  other  card 
is  more  amusing  still.  It  is  a  very  fine  lithograph,  rep- 
resenting neither  more  nor  less  than  the  earthly  Para- 
dise. In  the  background,  between  the  peaks  of  the 
mountains,  there  is  a  warm  sun  just  turning  red.  Be- 
low the  sun  is  a  background  of  mysterious  and  distant 
mist.  In  the  foreground  are  flowers  with  long  stalks 
and  two  tall  palm-trees,  between  which  a  rope  is 
stretched.  On  this  rope,  fastened  with  big  thorns,  two 
pathetic,  different  sized  vine-leaves  are  hanging.  We 
learn  from  the  words  below  the  picture  that  it  is  "  The 
first  washing  day."  It  is  extremely  comic  and  not  in 
the  least  coarse.  I  put  this  characteristic  lithograph 
up  on  the  wall  over  my  dressing-table.  On  looking  at 
it,  I  always  feel  a  certain  amusement,  mingled  with  a 
little  melancholy,  as  it  already  gives  such  an  impres- 
sion of  the  past  1  ... 


CHAPTER  XV 

I  HAVE  not  yet  finished  with  psychical  phenomena,  at 
least  with  those  which  are  known  to  us.  There  remains 
the  most  astonishing  of  them  all  —  prayer.  Ah,  how 
I  should  like  to  be  able  to  skip  this  subject,  but  if  I 
did  so,  it  would  keep  coming  back  to  my  mind  until  the 
end  of  my  volume  and  would  disturb  my  thoughts  in  a 
wicked  way.  The  most  uncomfortable  of  things  is  a 
dissatisfied  conscience. 

Communication  between  the  Creator  and  the  creature 
is  no  illusion.  It  must  have  been  set  up  with  our  first 
breath;  it  has  never  been  cut  off  and  it  never  will  be. 
At  a  given  moment  it  produced  prayer.  Prayer  is  the 
outcome  of  the  fear  which  inspires  it.  One  day,  the 
ancestor  with  low,  receding  forehead,  and  oh,  how  low 
it  still  was,  felt,  in  the  midst  of  some  cataclysm,  that 
sudden,  mysterious  emotion  which  we  call  fear.  He 
thought  he  saw  masters  and  enemies  in  each  of  the  forces 
of  Nature,  in  the  torrent  which  carried  away  great 
pieces  of  his  sloping  banks,  in  the  ocean,  which  ad- 
vanced in  a  threatening  way  and  then  withdrew  again, 
in  the  voices  of  the  forest,  in  the  thunder  which  split 
the  giant  trees,  and  in  the  bolide  which  fell  from  heaven. 
And  how  could  he  have  thought  that  forces  which  had 
movement  and  life  were  not  animated?  He  bent  his 
knee  before  them,  in  order  to  make  himself  appear 
smaller,  and  to  excite  in  them  the  pity  which  he  had, 

perhaps,   felt   for   some  captive.     Hoping  to   appease 

356 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE     357 

their  anger,  he  offered  them  the  best  of  his  plunder, 
after  his  hunting  and  fishing  expeditions,  or  human 
victims.  That  first  offering  was,  no  doubt,  the  first 
prayer. 

And  days  and  years  passed  over  the  Terrestrian. 
There  came  a  time  when  his  more  developed  soul  ex- 
perienced spiritual  grief.  This  may  have  been  due  to 
the  loss  of  a  being  dear  to  him  and,  at  the  same  time, 
he  was  suddenly  aware  of  the  Higher  Presence.  He 
raised  his  eyes  heavenwards,  because,  I  suppose,  the  loud 
voice  of  the  thunder  seemed  to  come  from  there;  the 
cloud  was  there  which  brought  with  it  the  destructive 
hail  and  the  sun,  too,  shone  there.  And  to  that  heaven 
where,  later  on,  he  was  to  place  his  gods,  in  that  direc- 
tion towards  which  so  many  eyes  were  to  be  turned,  he 
uttered  his  cry  of  distress.  Man  had  come  out  of  him- 
self ;  his  mind,  instead  of  crawling,  had  soared  above  his 
cavern  or  hut.  His  prayer  had,  perhaps,  been  nothing 
but  a  beating  of  wings.  That  is  of  little  matter;  the 
wings  were  there  and  spiritual  aviation  was  discovered. 
Under  the  action  of  metaphysical  force  his  prayer  in- 
creased and  became  more  noble,  its  waves  developed  into 
sacred  poetry  and  sacred  music.  These  waves  now  form 
a  wide  river,  full  of  impurities  as  yet,  but  which  will 
gradually  get  purified  as  it  approaches  the  Ocean  of 
Life  into  which  it  is  to  pour  itself.  Is  this  really  the 
way  in  which  the  gods  worked  in  the  Wonderful  Ro- 
mance? I  hope  so,  for  their  own  sake  and  for  mine. 
However  that  may  be,  the  child-Terrestrian,  judging 
the  Divinity  by  himself,  continued  offering  bloody  sacri- 
fices with  his  prayers,  in  the  hope  of  winning  favour. 


358     THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

In  the  days  of  human  sacrifices,  I  fancy  it  was  some 
cannibal  theologian  who  started  the  idea  that  the  will 
of  the  gods  could  be  known  by  the  arrangement  of  the 
internal  organs  of  the  victims.  When  the  priests  had 
read  the  intestines,  the  lungs,  the  liver  and  the  heart 
were  burnt  on  the  altar,  but  the  flesh  was  distributed 
to  those  present,  sold  for  the  benefit  of  the  temples,  and 
given  over  to  the  priests  who  sold  it.  These  bloody 
sacrifices  made  the  altars  seem  like  the  benches  of  a 
butcher's  shop  and  the  Pontiffs  like  butchers.  The 
cake  of  pure  flour,  which  was  offered  to  certain  gods, 
was  the  precursor  of  the  consecrated  bread  of  Christian 
communities.  This  came  in  its  own  good  time,  as  all 
things  do,  and  it  was  the  sin-money  and  the  miracle- 
money  which  supplied  the  funds  for  the  new  worship. 

The  gifts  offered  up,  in  self-interest,  by  the  Terres- 
trian  to  the  Master  of  the  Universe,  had  always  ap- 
peared to  me  grotesque.  One  day,  though,  I  happened 
to  witness  a  little  scene  between  two  young  lads  which 
made  me  see  the  sacrifices  in  another  light,  a  light  which 
I  now  believe  to  be  the  true  one.  The  bigger  boy  had  a 
wretched  looking  pocket-knife  which  the  smaller  boy 
evidently  coveted.  He  thought,  no  doubt,  that  it  would 
be  a  fine  thing  to  own  a  knife  which  shut  up. 

"  Give  it  me,"  he  said,  "  and  you  shall  have  all  that 
I  have  in  my  pockets." 

**  Let's  see  what's  in  your  pockets,"  replied  the  other 
one. 

The  child  spread  out  all  his  possessions,  somewhat 
reluctantly,  on  a  low  wall.  They  consisted  of  a  ball  of 
string,  three  marbles  and  a  few  playing  cards.  By  a 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  359 

rapid  association  of  ideas,  I  saw,  in  this  little  scene, 
the  gesture  of  man  face  to  face  with  God.  The  candour 
and  the  poverty  which  it  revealed  seemed  to  me  so  pa- 
thetic and  so  touching  that  my  eyes  were  misty  with 
tears.  The  owner  of  the  knife  refused  the  exchange. 
I  was  tempted  to  buy  a  knife  for  the  disappointed  little 
fellow,  but  refrained  from  doing  so  lest  he  should  hurt 
himself  with  it.  Providence  often  acts  like  this  with 
us  perhaps. 

The  Roman  Catholic  Catechism  gives  an  admirable 
definition  of  prayer.  It  tells  us  that  it  is  "  an  elevation 
of  our  soul  towards  God."  And  this  is  the  phenomenon. 
It  is  this  invisible  force  which  snatches  man  away  from 
his  cares  and  material  preoccupations  and  transports 
him  to  the  metaphysical  plane  of  the  earth,  in  order 
to  give  him  a  moment's  repose,  oblivion  and  change. 
The  repetition,  even  though  it  may  be  mechanical,  of 
words  that  are  not  understood  is  beneficent  and  refresh- 
ing. This  force  acts  on  man  in  various  degrees  and  in 
a  thousand  different  ways,  by  means  of  religion,  words, 
pictures,  symbols,  grief,  or  by  a  desire  for  some  good. 
Alone,  the  Terrestrian  could  never  make  the  start,  and 
even  now  his  flights  are  only  very  insignificant  ones. 
They  never  go  beyond  the  zone  where  the  personages  of 
his  spiritual  dream  are.  He  very  rarely  reaches  the 
highest  peak  of  Olympus.  There  are  thousands  of 
creatures  who  never  kneel,  who  frequent  no  church  and 
who  do  not  pray,  creatures  who  are  frequently  very 
superior,  as  regards  intellect  and  morality.  Do  they 
just  miss  this  attractive,  metaphysical  force?  No,  but 
they  are  destined  for  more  active  service  than  that  of 


360     THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

prayer,  and  prayer  is  not  necessary  to  them.  From 
time  to  time,  nevertheless,  in  the  midst  of  their  occu- 
pations, from  across  the  gulf  which  seems  to  separate 
them  from  all  religious  ideal,  their  thoughts  are  at- 
tracted by  the  Beyond,  by  God,  and  they  wonder  what 
He  is,  what  He  is  like  and  where  He  is.  They  come 
into  contact  with  Him  in  this  way.  They  feel  that  He 
exists  and  that  is  enough.  Atheism  must  be  an  illusion 
and  the  atheist  an  impossibility.  He  would  be  an  indi- 
vidual upon  whom  none  of  the  forces  of  Nature  would 
act  and  who  could  not  have  been  created.  That  people 
should  not  believe' in  the  God  made  by  man,  I  can  under- 
stand and  I  do  not  believe  in  such  a  God  myself,  but 
that  people  should  not  believe  in  the  God  who  made 
man  seems  to  me  an  aberration. 

The  housemaid  on  my  floor  of  the  hotel  is  German. 
She  comes  from  Posen,  I  believe.  She  has  a  mind  which 
is  naturally  objective  and  this  gives  her  the  most  aston- 
ishing philosophical  intuition.  "  I  do  not  talk  to  people 
who  say  there  is  no  God,"  she  remarked  to  me,  the  other 
day,  "  nor  to  those  who  think  their  own  religion  is  the 
only  one  that  is  good,  as  they  are  too  stupid  for  me." 

"  Olga,"  I  said,  laughing,  "  you  are  the  first  philo- 
sophical maid  I  have  had." 

"What  is  philosophy?"  she  asked.  "I  have  heard 
that  word  several  times  and  I  do  not  know  what  it 
means." 

"  Wisdom,"  I  replied. 

**  Ah,"  she  said  simply,  continuing  her  dusting  ener- 
getically. 

The  people  of  the  working-class,  with  their  admirable 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  361 

common-sense,  say  that  "  those  who  work  are  praying," 
and  they  are  once  more  right,  for  all  work,  even  that  of 
the  most  humble  and  abject  kind,  means  communion  with 
the  author  of  Life. 

One  day,  I  felt  curious  to  see  the  faces  of  religious 
people,  when  they  were  praying  together.  The  Church 
of  St.  Roch  of  Paris  was  an  excellent  post  of  observa- 
tion for  me.  The  sight  was  so  interesting  and  so  full 
of  revelations,  that  I  have  since  been  to  a  number  of 
churches  of  different  faiths  for  the  same  purpose. 

The  effect  of  all  these  rows  of  faces,  so  alike  and  yet 
so  different,  was  ugly  and  almost  comic.  One  must 
have  seen  a  great  many  faces  of  white  people  together 
to  realise  how  many  different  shades  they  may  be:  dull 
white,  pinky  white,  grey  white,  yellowish  and  greenish 
white.  Their  expressions  of  piety  were  still  more 
varied.  Some  of  these  expressions  were  veritable 
grimaces  of  the  most  apparent  falseness,  and  others  were 
beautiful  and  pathetic.  Some  were  looking  down  and 
others  looking  upwards.  There  were  lips  that  were 
moving  mechanically,  whilst  the  eyes  would  be  glancing 
here  and  there,  taking  in  impressions  which  did  not  seem 
to  be  religious  ones.  Some  of  the  hands  held  books, 
others  told  beads,  and  others  were  clasped  as  though 
in  supplication.  The  young  men  present  seemed  to  be 
looking  on  at  some  spectacle,  the  older  men  alone  were 
praying  with  a  certain  dignity.  And  all  this  was  sup- 
posed to  be  an  elevation  of  the  soul  towards  God !  Ah, 
no,  I  did  not  have  that  sensation  for  an  instant.  I  had 
a  very  clear  impression  of  a  halt  in  life's  rush,  of  an 
enforced  rest  which  would  teach  children  to  keep  still. 


862    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  all  tongues  were  bridled  for  a 
moment  nnd  a  damper  put  on  to  all  turbulent  brain 
cells.  The  solemn  waves  from  the  organ,  coming  and 
going  over  the  heads  of  the  congregation  like  a  bene- 
diction, the  voice  of  the  priest,  the  words  of  the  rite 
created  an  atmosphere  which  was  infinitely  soothing. 
The  idea  then  came  to  my  mind  that,  just  as  there  are 
military  exercises  for  training  man  for  the  struggle,  for 
heroism  and  for  patriotism,  so  there  are  religious  exer- 
cises for  training  him  in  concentration,  spiritual  life  and 
the  love  of  God.  The  church  service  is  only  a  prepara- 
tion for  prayer.  It  is  not  prayer  itself.  In  Protestant 
churches,  the  religious  exercise  is  performed  in  a  more 
simple  and  severe  way.  The  expression  of  people's 
faces  there  is  uniform  and  conventional.  The  Mussul- 
man's prayer  is  strangely  touching  in  its  manliness. 
At  certain  moments  it  seems  to  draw  down,  into  the 
Mosque,  the  Presence  of  God.  True  prayer  is  a  com- 
munion. It  could  not  be  only  individual.  I  may  add 
that  I  have  seen  the  phenomenon,  that  I  have  seen  it  as 
far  as  human  eyes  can  see  the  Invisible.  This  was 
three  years  ago,  in  Italy,  when  visiting  the  Cathedral 
of  Spello,  a  small  town  in  religious  Umbria.  I  was  just 
passing  by  one  of  the  dimly,  but  artistically,  lighted 
chapels,  when  two  magnificent  dark  eyes  riveted  on  a 
picture  of  the  Virgin  brought  me  to  a  standstill.  They 
were  the  eyes  of  a  man  of  about  fifty  years  of  age. 
His  hair  was  turning  grey  and  his  face  was  emaciated, 
either  by  illness  or  grief.  He  was  some  little  distance 
from  the  altar,  with  one  knee  only  on  the  praying-chair 
and  the  other  leg  seemed  to  be  stiff.  His  lips  moved 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  363 

slowly,  like  lips  which  know  what  they  are  saying.  I 
wondered  for  whom  he  was  praying  so  ardently.  The 
impassibility  of  the  Madonna  caused  me  the  most  child- 
ish irritation.  It  seemed  to  me  that  she  ought  to  have 
been  touched  by  this  earnestness.  I  felt  the  sensation 
of  prayer  to  such  a  degree  that,  in  order  not  to  inter- 
rupt the  waves  of  it,  I  passed  along,  with  muffled  tread, 
at  the  back  of  the  unknown  man.  If  I  had  then  been 
writing  my  chapters  on  mysticism,  I  should  have  fancied 
that  it  was  a  case  of  auto-suggestion,  but  I  had  not 
even  thought  of  these  chapters  then.  I  asked  the  sacris- 
tan who  this  pious  individual  was.  **  Un  gran  buon 
signore,  ma  assai  infelice  "  (a  good  man  of  old  family, 
but  very  unhappy),  he  replied.  There  are  things  that 
even  a  novelist's  curiosity  has  to  respect,  so  I  did  not 
insist.  Compared  with  that  living  prayer,  the  frescoes 
of  Pinturicchio,  the  Renaissance  tabernacle,  seemed  dead 
things  to  me  and  I  do  not  remember  them  at  all. 

In  my  opinion,  the  most  beautiful  forms  of  prayer 
we  have  are  the  Lord's  Prayer,  the  Canticle  of  the  Sun, 
the  Laude  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi  and  certain  English 
hymns. 

Christ  taught  us  a  very  simple  and  dignified  prayer, 
an  immortal  prayer,  the  one  which  gives  the  name  of 
Father  to  the  supreme  Creator,  thus  uniting  all  Ter- 
restrians  fraternally  without  distinction  of  race,  class 
or  creed.  We  have  not  yet  understood  it,  and  I  believe 
that  it  contains  the  whole  mission  of  the  prophet  of 
Nazareth. 

Out  of  the  magnificent  wave  of  the  "  Our  Father  " 
came  "  The  Canticle  of  the  Sun."  This  is  still  Christ's 


364    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

dream,  but  strangely  enlarged,  as  it  takes  in  the  whole 
of  creation.  Mankind  thanks  God  "  for  his  brother, 
the  sun,  for  his  sisters,  the  moon  and  the  stars,  for  his 
brother,  the  wind,  for  the  air  and  the  clouds,  for  the 
clear  sky,  for  his  sister,  the  water,  for  his  brother,  the 
fire,  and  for  his  sister,  material  death."  And  this  re- 
lationship, so  profoundly  real,  with  all  beings  and  with 
all  things,  makes  man  greater,  ennobles  him  and  bears 
him  along  towards  the  Infinite.  This  adorable  canticle, 
which,  according  to  the  Church,  is  too  pantheistic,  ought 
to  be  sung  in  chorus  in  all  the  temples  of  the  earth  and 
repeated  every  day  by  every  thinking  soul.  It  would 
be  understood  by  the  most  primitive  and  the  most  culti- 
vated mind  alike.  Universality  is  the  great  divine  seal. 

The  "  Laus  Deo,"  which  St.  Francis  wrote,  after  re- 
ceiving the  stigmatisation,  is  a  hymn  of  pure  adoration. 
It  begins  as  follows :  "  Thou  art  holy,  Lord  God,  thou 
art  God  above  all  gods,  Thou  art  the  sole  author  of 
miraculous  works."  This  is,  I  believe,  the  only  prayer 
in  which  man  does  not  ask  for  anything! 

English  hymns  are  written  for  the  musses.  They  are 
very  manly  and  very  human.  They  link  their  hope  to 
that  of  the  sacred  poets,  as  in  "  The  Lord  is  my  Shep- 
herd," and  that  hope  always  works  powerfully. 

Our  prayers  are  the  prayers  of  children  and  of  beg- 
gars. We  know  nothing  of  the  prayer  of  love.  I  shall 
scandalise  many  pious  people,  and  many  orthodox  peo- 
ple, by  affirming  that  all  of  us,  just  as  we  arc,  know 
nothing  yet  of  the  prayer  of  love.  Mystics  have  an 
imaginary  love  for  God,  a  kind  of  neurotic  love.  Ordi- 
nary mortals  have  a  sort  of  forced  love  that  is  due 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  365 

to  suggestion.  People  dare  deny  the  existence  of  God 
and  they  dare  not  say  that  they  do  not  love  Him.  We 
have  endeavoured  to  conceive  what  God  is  like  before 
endeavouring  to  know  Him  and,  in  spite  of  the  immense 
effort  this  has  cost  us,  our  conception  is  such  a  paltry 
one  that  it  has  only  produced  a  wrong  and  fallacious 
sentiment.  Why  has  Providence  willed  all  this?  By 
way  of  exercising  our  faculties,  no  doubt,  and  in  order 
to  give  more  splendour  to  the  truth,  as  this  is  the  real 
reason  of  error.  I  cannot  find  any  other  possible  ex- 
planation. 

God,  whom  we  always  see  in  the  Beyond,  does  not 
seem  real  to  us.  We  neither  feel  His  presence  nor  His 
action.  We  cry  out  in  our  despair  at  the  incontestable 
suffering  there  is  to  endure,  but  we  do  not  notice  how 
much  God  does  to  soften  this  for  us.  We  are  eloquent 
in  our  admiration  pf  some  work  of  art,  and  we  do  not 
say  it  is  due  to  Him,  that  inspiration  penetrated  the 
soul  of  the  artist  just  as  the  sun  penetrates  the  bark 
and  the  thick  pulp  of  the  fruit.  With  the  same  thought- 
lessness as  the  sparrows  that  I  feed,  we  eat,  for  instance, 
the  orange  without  noticing  the  genius  by  which  its  per- 
fume and  its  taste  have  been  preserved  for  us.  Who 
has  even  thought,  when  peeling  a  banana,  of  admiring 
the  warm  weaving  of  its  covering?  How  many  persons, 
when  squeezing  a  grape  between  their  lips,  say  to  them- 
selves that  this  nectar  of  force  —  and  of  weakness  — 
comes  from  a  piece  of  ugly  twisted  wood?  One  day, 
in  Normandy,  when  sitting  outdoors  on  a  bench  at  a 
farm  there,  I  drank  a  bowl  of  cream.  When  I  came  to 
the  last  drop,  I  said  aloud :  "  Ah,  God,  how  well  you 


366    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

Jiave  made  that.  Thank  you!  It  is  your  master- 
piece." A  young  friend  who  was  with  me  laughed  out- 
right. 

"  I  never  before  heard  grace  at  meals  said  in  that 
way,"  she  exclaimed. 

"  I  say  mine  in  that  way  now  always,"  I  replied.  "  I 
fancy  it  must  be  agreeable  to  some  one  and  that  it  is 
better  than  a  long  prayer.  It  is  more  easy  to  admire  a 
star  than  *  our  daily  bread.'  " 

As  I  rose,  I  happened  to  see  a  herd  of  cows  grazing 
in  a  meadow  near. 

"  There,  you  see,"  I  continued,  "  the  miracle  of  the 
cream  is  taking  place  over  yonder.  Man  needs  *  green 
meat '  and,  as  he  is  not  organised  for  grazing,  Nature 
has  created  a  living  apparatus  for  cutting  the  grass, 
macerating  and  re-macerating  it  and  transforming  it 
into  white  milk,  creamy  and  sweet." 

"  But  the  process  makes  the  little  calves  into  my  fos- 
ter-brothers," said  my  companion,  smiling. 

"  Exactly,  and  the  cows  into  our  foster-mothers ! 
The  Hindus  who  put  them  among  their  sacred  animals 
were  profound  thinkers." 

"  It  really  is  wonderful,"  said  the  girl,  with  her  eyes 
fixed  on  the  good  animal  foster-mothers ;  "  but  after 
all,"  she  continued,  "  miracles  are  no  effort  to  God." 

"  No  effort?  "  I  repeated.  "  By  considering  God  as 
a  kind  of  magician,  we  lessen  His  greatness.  Each 
creation,  the  blade  of  grass,  like  the  star,  represents  an 
immensity  of  thought,  of  calculation  and  of  effort. 
Have  not  the  Earth  and  the  Terrestrian  been  worked 
on  now  for  millions  of  }rears?  " 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  367 

"  That  is  so,  but  is  it  not  a  terrible  thing  that  we 
have  to  forget  what  we  have  been  taught  and  to  make  a 
fresh  mentality  for  ourselves  ?  " 

"  Do  not  forget  anything,"  I  said  quickly,  "  for  your 
impressions,  like  the  darkness,  are  to  serve  for  making 
you  want  light  and  then  go  in  search  of  it." 

This  conversation  came  back  to  my  mind  as,  the  last 
few  days,  I  have  heard  a  great  deal  of  conversation 
about  re-education.  Our  psychological  doctors  have 
brought  this  word  into  vogue.  Some  of  them  are  for 
the  re-education  of  thought  by  the  suggestion  of  simple 
reason,  and  others  by  hypnotic  suggestion.  They  are 
all  of  them  right  and  this  is  just  the  reason  why  they 
will  never  agree.  This  re-education  is  necessary  for 
people  who  are  quite  well  physically,  just  as  it  is  neces- 
sary for  invalids,  for  the  sake  of  teaching  them  to  look 
at  Life.  It  has  already  commenced  and  is  going  on 
slowly,  but  surely,  and  among  the  people  of  humble 
rank.  The  day  will  come  when  religion,  after  it  has 
evolved,  together  with  science  will  create  the  wave  of 
admiration  and  this  alone  will  be  able  to  produce  the 
prayer  of  love.  And  this  will  truly  be  the  elevation  of 
the  earthly  soul  towards  the  God  of  the  Universe,  and 
the  phenomenon  will  then  be  complete. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THERE  is  certainly  some  one  working  with  me,  or,  what 
is  more  probable,  some  one  with  whom  I  am  working. 
After  having  studied  Western  Christianism,  my  mind 
next  took  up  the  social  questions  which  it  had,  as  it 
were,  prepared.  I  was  already  feeling  all  the  anguish 
and  terror  of  a  difficult  chapter,  when  I  was  invited  to 
luncheon  at  a  hotel  on  the  shore  of  the  Lake,  at  which 
I  had  stayed  many  years  ago.  Whilst  talking  to  my 
friend,  I  recalled  the  former  table  d'hote,  with  its  ele- 
gant guests,  and  some  of  the  faces  which  had  made  an 
impression  on  me.  Suddenly,  I  had  an  inward  start, 
for  just  near  to  me  were  two  of  those  faces,  that  of 
Count  C-  — ,  a  Milanese,  and  that  of  an  American  girl, 
Miss  W .  Seated  between  them  were  two  fine-look- 
ing little  boys.  Then,  on  that  wonderful  film,  with 
which  we  are  all  provided,  a  scene  which  I  should  have 
thought  obliterated,  appeared  once  again. 

One  evening,  seventeen  years  previously,  as  I  was 
exchanging  a  few  remarks  with  an  acquaintance,  just 
near  the  door  of  this  same  dining-room,  I  overheard  a 
tall,  dark  young  man  say  to  the  head  waiter:  "For 
Heaven's  sake,  Vittorio,  do  not  put  me  by  uncongenial 
people."  This  request  from  one  Italian  to  another  was 
the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world,  and  I  heard  Vit- 
torio reply  promptly :  '*  Monsieur  le  Comte  need  not 
fear  that."  I  noticed  the  keen,  shrewd  expression  in 
the  waiter's  eyes  as  he  glanced  round  the  table,  at  which 

there   were   very    few   vacant   places.     His    face   then 

368 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  369 

lighted  up,  as  though  by  some  intuition.  "  Will  Mon- 
sieur come  here  ?  "  he  said,  and  he  showed  his  com- 
patriot to  a  seat  to  the  right  of  two  American  women, 
a  mother  and  daughter.  The  latter  had  a  charming 
face,  hair  and  eyes  of  golden  brown,  a  clear  complexion 
and  a  pretty,  fresh-looking  mouth.  The  Italian's  face 
expressed  satisfaction.  Vittorio  evidently  understood 
him,  for  his  neighbours  were  not  uncongenial.  My  seat 

was  opposite  Count  C and  I  noticed  that  he  passed 

the  menu,  the  salt  and  the  fruit  to  the  two  American 
women.  On  leaving  the  table  after  dinner,  he  bowed  to 
them  with  that  mixture  of  courtesy  and  intentional  hu- 
mility in  which  the  Italian  excels.  The  following  day, 
at  luncheon,  conversation  began  between  the  Italian  and 
his  neighbours.  It  continued  at  dinner  and,  the  day 
following,  it  was  renewed  on  the  verandah.  Then  the 
American  women  flew  away.  I  say  flew,  as  American 
women  always  seem  to  me  like  foreign  birds  perching 

here  and  there.     Count  C went  away  in  his  turn. 

The  following  year,  in  the  month  of  May,  I  saw  the 

announcement  of  his  marriage  with  Miss  W in  the 

New  York  Herald.  I  had  seen  the  prologue  of  it,  and 
a  friend  had  told  me  the  chapters  that  had  followed. 
At  Rome,  the  young  man  had  found  his  table  neighbour 
again.  He  obtained  a  formal  introduction  to  her, 
danced  and  flirted  with  her  and,  in  spite  of  the  keen 
opposition  of  the  mother,  he  managed  to  marry  both 
the  girl  and  the  handsome  fortune  which  came  to  her 
from  her  father.  The  epilogue  which  I  now  had  before 
me  was  embellished  by  these  two  scions,  who  appeared 
to  be  most  happy. 


370     THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

As  I  recalled  all  this,  I  saw  distinctly,  just  as  though 
it  were  on  a  luminous  screen,  the  waiter  taking  the  young 
Milanese  towards  the  girl  who  was  to  become  his  wife,  the 
girl  who  was  therefore  destined  for  him.  And  this  ges- 
ture of  the  head-waiter's,  when  he  pointed  to  the  vacant 
seat,  had  helped  to  bring  about  a  marriage,  to  graft  a 
human  race,  to  give  back  to  an  old  impoverished  family 
its  social  rank  and  existence.  Its  action  will  go  on  being 
perpetuated,  perhaps,  through  several  generations. 
Was  not  Vittorio,  the  humble  waiter,  the  collaborator  of 
Providence  in  all  this?  He  little  guessed  this  himself, 
but  Providence  knew  and  we  may  be  sure  that  its  collabo- 
rators, all  its  collaborators,  even  those  whom  we  con- 
sider as  criminals,  and  even  those  who  are  chosen  from 
a  lower  kingdom,  must  be  precious  and  dear  to  Provi- 
dence. This  is  not  only  because  they  are  doing  the 
work  assigned  to  them,  but  because  they  are  Provi- 
dence's own  creation.  This  stereotyped  gesture  of  the 
waiter's  used  to  get  on  my  nerves,  but  at  present  my 
objective  eye  watches  it  with  curiosity  and  interest.  If 
it  serves,  sometimes,  in  bringing  about  some  fine  happi- 
ness, it  also  serves,  by  putting  certain  individuals  into 
touch  with  each  other,  in  bringing  about  some  fine 
misery.  Its  mission  in  life  is  none  the  less  remarkable 

on  this  account.     Count  C came  back  to  this  hotel, 

perhaps,  out  of  a  sort  of  gratitude,  but  I  would  wager 
that  he  has  never  given  a  thought  to  the  man  who  was 
the  agent  of  his  fortune.  Only  an  Italian  would  have 
been  capable  of  understanding  what  would  be  con- 
genial or  uncongenial  to  another  Italian,  and  Vittorio 
had  been  necessary  for  bringing  together  the  Milanese 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  371 

and  the  American  girl.  This  fact  certainly  reveals 
providential,  or  I  might  say  individual,  thought,  and 
such  delicate,  profound  thought  too.  The  humble,  the 
most  humble  of  all,  are  continually  working  out  the 
destinies  of  the  great ;  and  the  great  are  working  out, 
in  the  same  way,  the  destinies  of  the  humble.  This  is 
the  true  equality,  the  only  equality  possible,  as  it  satis- 
fies all  human  dignity.  It  makes  colleagues  of  us  all, 
limbs  of  the  same  body ;  workmen  not  of  man,  but  of 
God. 

For  a  long  time,  a  very  long  time,  those  who  were 
employed  at  the  hotel  and  who  waited  on  me  were  to 
me  so  many  black  coats  or  white  caps;  a  Francis  re- 
placed a  John,  a  Louisa  replaced  a  Mary  and  it  seemed 
to  me  that  it  was  always  the  same  man  or  woman. 
Then,  by  some  characteristic  action,  one  or  another  of 
these  individuals  attracted  my  notice.  To  my  mind, 
which  had  become  objective,  to  my  eye,  which  had  been 
born  again,  they  now  began  to  appear  as  Life's  servitors, 
as  interesting  specimens  of  the  terrestrial  soul.  I  dis- 
covered in  them  qualities  that  came  straight  from  Na- 
ture, qualities  which  were  neither  due  to  education  nor 
to  conventionality.  The  whole  class  then  won  my  sym- 
pathy and  even  my  affection.  In  our  touring  epoch, 
this  class  has  become  an  important  factor  and  it  de- 
serves to  be  better  known. 

Those  who  are  employed  in  hotels  are  superior  to 
servants  in  private  houses.  They  must  have  had  a  good 
elementary  education.  In  their  off-time,  between 
luncheon  and  dinner,  the  foreign  servants  study  French, 
write  exercises  and  read  the  newspapers  of  their  owa 


372    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

country.  Many  of  the  German  and  Italian  hotel 
servants  are  musical,  and  the  Germans  and  Italians  arf 
generally  the  best  of  the  staff.  It  frequently  happens 
that,  from  their  sixth  storey,  we  get  strains  from  the 
violin,  the  mandoline  or  the  guitar.  The  waiters  need 
to  be  intelligent,  to  have  a  good  memory,  to  be  psy- 
chologists and  to  have  a  quick  eye.  All  this  is  required 
of  them  and  some  of  them  are  extraordinarily  well  quali- 
fied for  their  work.  Certain  waiters  look  in  vain,  for 
they  never  see  when  a  knife,  fork  or  glass  is  wanting. 
It  is  astounding  that  there  are  so  many  Terrestrians 
who,  although  they  have  a  good  pair  of  eyes,  can  never 
see.  Waiters  who  serve  meals  in  the  private  rooms  need 
the  skill  of  clowns  for  carrying  the  trays,  laden  with 
glass  and  china,  to  the  different  floors  of  the  hotel. 
They  often  run  with  them,  out  of  vanity.  I  can  dis- 
tinguish now,  at  once,  those  who  will  some  day  wear 
the  black  neck-tie  of  the  head-waiter,  or  a  manager's 
coat,  and  those  who  are  doomed  forever  to  the  white 
neck-tie. 

There  are  very  few  officials  in  important  posts  who 
would  be  capable  of  acting  as  the  hall  porter  of  a  large 
hotel.  This  individual  has  to  watch  over  the  general 
security  of  the  house.  He  must  have  a  good  memory 
for  names  and  faces,  receive  the  letters  and  parcels 
which  arrive  from  all  parts  of  the  world,  keep  an  ac- 
count of  money  that  is  advanced,  settle  all  difficulties 
between  cabmen,  chauffeurs  and  their  customers,  help 
travellers  to  get  about,  know  by  heart  the  railway  time- 
tables and  be  almost  a  living  Baedeker.  No  one  could 
imagine  all  the  information  that  is  expected  from  this 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE     373 

unfortunate   man.     I   am   only   surprised  that   people 
never  ask  him  the  way  to  Paradise. 

The  little  grooms  who  are  now,  together  with  bakers' 
boys,  the  chief  spectators  of  all  street  scenes  in  Paris, 
have  a  strangely  demoralising  sort  of  life  in  hotels.  It 
is  surprising  that  more  of  them  do  not  turn  out  badly. 
Instead  of  exercising  their  faculties  and  their  fingers 
as  apprentices  to  some  trade,  they  are  planted  in  the 
hall  of  the  hotel,  employed  in  opening  and  closing  doors 
and  in  going  errands  to  the  four  quarters  of  the  city. 
The  "  tip  "  becomes  their  sole  object  in  life,  and  they 
have  no  other  ambition  than  to  see  their  purses  swelling 
with  pieces  of  silver  money.  When  I  look  at  them, 
fastened  as  it  were  to  their  stools,  with  their  feet 
dangling,  an  inert  expression  on  their  young  faces,  or 
else  absorbed  in  reading  some  wretched  newspaper,  and 
under  the  direct  suggestion  of  thefts,  crimes  and  sui- 
cides, I  feel  a  kind  of  distress.  It  seems  to  me  that 
they  are  not  being  protected  as  they  ought  to  be.  They 
never  hear,  for  instance,  a  word  of  anything  elevated  in 
tone.  No  one  helps  to  put  them  on  the  right  road,  or 
brings  them  back  to  it  if  they  go  astray.  Their  only 
home  is  a  bed-room  on  the  sixth  floor,  and  on  that  ter- 
rible sixth  floor  they  have  the  worst  possible  examples 
before  them.  If  they  are  to  come  out  morally  and 
physically  intact  from  the  furnace  into  which  they  are 
flung,  they  must  certainly  be  refractory  to  evil.  They 
are  all  equal  to  emergencies  and  intelligent,  most  of 
them  are  very  good-hearted  boys.  At  Christmas  time, 
they  are  to  be  seen  in  the  post-offices  sending  off  post- 
office  orders  to  a  grandfather,  a  grandmother,  or  even 


374          THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

to  their  foster-mother.  A  beam  of  honest  pride  lights 
up  their  boyish  faces  when  they  are  doing  this.  Rich 
children  receive  and  poor  children  give.  Are  the  latter 
not  greater  than  the  former? 

In  Paris,  the  chamber-maids  and  valets  in  the  hotels 
are  nearly  always  French.  They  are  frequently  mar- 
ried and  very  fine  couples  they  often  are.  I  have  fre- 
quently noticed  the  way  in  which  the  wife  tries  to 
lighten  her  husband's  work,  and  I  have  been  deeply 
touched  by  this.  Their  children  are  brought  up  by 
their  old  parents  in  their  native  village.  They  have 
to  sacrifice  the  joy  of  being  with  these  children  and 
they  are  paying  money  for  them  all  the  time.  They 
adore  them  all  the  more,  probably,  for  that  very  reason. 

The  soul  of  the  different  nations  to  which  all  these 
hotel  servants  belong  can  be  felt  in  their  service.  That 
of  the  Northern  German  and  of  the  Swiss  is  rough  and 
surly  but  kindly ;  that  of  the  Southern  German  is  more 
gentle  and  refined.  The  soul  of  the  Italian  is  very  com- 
plex, passionate,  shrewd  and  instinctively  courteous ; 
that  of  the  Austrian  pleasant  and  gay;  that  of  the 
Scandinavian  timid,  proud  and  very  sentimental ;  that 
of  the  English  apparently  cold,  somewhat  distant,  but 
correct  and  dignified.  That  of  the  French  gives  me  a 
sensation  of  clearness,  quick  intelligence  and  frankness. 

Some  of  those  employed  in  the  hotels  belong  to  good 
families.  Among  the  Austrians  and  Scandinavians 
there  are  some  very  fine-looking,  strapping  young  men. 
They  are  very  clean,  well  and  carefully  dressed  and 
would  pass  for  the  scions  of  Grand  Dukes  or  Archdukes. 

Foreigners  only  see,  of  course,  the  best  side  of  these 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  375 

Terrestrians  of  various  nationalities,  but  under  the 
surface  of  this  best  side  there  is  a  constant  bubbling  up 
of  jealousy,  envy  and  a  crowd  of  ugly  instincts.  The 
manager  has  to  be  very  firm,  skilful  and  just,  if  he  is 
to  obtain  peace  among  them  and  the  discipline  neces- 
sary for  the  comfort  of  his  guests.  When  people  of  the 
humbler  class  are  not  in  service,  they  are  very  fraternal 
and  they  help  each  other  and  come  to  each  other's  relief 
with  admirable  generosity.  Directly  they  find  them- 
selves together  under  a  master,  they  become  enemies. 
There  is  nothing  surprising  in  this,  for  one  must  be 
fairly  high  up  in  the  psychological  scale  to  be  able  to 
bear  the  brunt  of  rivalry  well. 

Those  employed  in  hotels  are  generally  badly  lodged. 
They  have  to  sleep  in  very  small  rooms,  just  under  the 
roof,  rooms  that  are  extremely  warm  in  summer  and 
extremely  cold  in  winter. 

Now-a-days,  inspectors  come  round  from  time  to 
time.  They  must  simply  content  themselves  with  see- 
ing that  there  is  insufficient  air  and  space,  for  it  does 
not  seem  to  me  that  any  difference  is  made  after  their 
visits.  The  employes  are  frequently  ill-fed.  In  Ger- 
many, they  have  the  right  of  bringing  an  action  against 
the  avaricious  employer,  but  they  lose  their  situations 
afterwards  and  they  cannot  all  afford  this.  It  is  sim- 
ply slavery  still,  and  the  slavery  of  the  free  man  is  the 
hardest  kind  of  any. 

I  was  glad  to  see  the  introduction  of  the  law  for  a 
day  of  rest  every  week.  It  is  a  tiresome  law  for  the 
hotel  proprietors,  and  a  disagreeable  one  for  those  stay- 
ing in  the  hotels,  as  it  means  strange  servants  once  a 


376    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

week.  For  a  few  among  those  employed,  this  day  of 
rest  gives  them  an  opportunity  of  spending  their  money 
foolishly  and  of  ruining  their  health,  but  for  the  ma- 
jority it  is  an  excellent  thing.  They  all  feel  the  need 
of  this  rest,  for  they  get  up  late  on  this  day,  which  is 
a  luxury  their  predecessors  never  knew.  The  Swiss  and 
Germans  generally  go  for  long  country  walks,  they  treat 
themselves  to  the  cinematograph,  go  to  the  picture 
galleries  or  to  hear  some  music.  Their  cerebral  cellules 
receive  thousands  of  fresh  impressions,  and  this,  no 
doubt,  advances  their  progress.  It  seems  as  though  the 
gods  want  to  accelerate  everything  at  present.  The 
French  married  servants  go  to  see  their  children,  their 
parents  or  their  friends.  Those  who  have  a  room  some- 
where like  going  to  spend  the  day  there  together.  The 
coffee  they  make  and  the  meals  that  they  cook  there 
seem  delicious  to  them  and  they  feel  a  special  kind  of 
joy  in  being  at  home.  The  following  day  they  return 
to  the  hotel,  looking  rested  and  more  ready  to  put  forth 
their  energy  in  their  daily  work.  When  humanity 
knows  its  own  body  and  soul  better  and  the  play  of  the 
repercussions  it  undergoes,  it  will  make  the  best  use  of 
the  forces  of  each  one  for  the  benefit  of  all,  and  it  is 
only  then  that  we  shall  have  learnt  how  to  love  one 
another.  To  love  is  nothing,  but  to  know  how  to  love 
is  everything! 

Those  employed  in  hotels  give  us  a  fine  example  of 
what  the  right  sort  of  mutuality  can  do.  They  have 
founded  a  Society  which  gives  them  all  help  and  pro- 
tection. It  procures  situations  for  its  members,  allows 
them  an  indemnity  of  three  francs  a  day  in  case  of 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  377 

illness,  during  the  first  three  months,  and  one  franc 
fifty  during  the  following  three  months.  It  also  gives 
them  a  pension  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  francs  a  year, 
later  on.  It  pays  the  funeral  expenses  of  its  members 
and  helps  the  widows  and  orphans.  Formerly  when  a 
hotel  waiter  died,  he  was  buried  in  a  pauper's  grave  and 
his  relatives  could  never  find  any  trace  of  him.  At 
present,  the  family  is  informed,  a  temporary  allotment 
is  bought  in  the  cemetery,  his  grave  is  marked  round 
and  a  wreath  is  laid  on  it.  All  this  is  done  with  sub- 
scriptions of  two  francs  fifty  a  month,  the  profits  of 
an  annual  ball  and  the  interest  of  the  capital  which  the 
Society  possesses,  for,  thanks  to  its  good  organisation, 
gifts  and  legacies,  it  is  now  rich.  It  has  prospered  like 
this,  chiefly  because  it  is  due  to  private  initiative.  The 
day  when  it  has  the  unfortunate  idea  of  getting  itself 
recognised  by  the  State,  and  it  is  sure  to  have  this 
idea,  the  interest  of  its  capital  will  increase,  but  its 
capital  will  decrease. 

The  hotel  staff  is  very  badly  paid  and  the  tip  is  its 
real  profit.  Many  travellers,  more  particularly  the 
wealthy  ones,  protest  against  this  indirect  taxation. 
They  are  right,  in  the  sense  that  service  is  supposed 
to  be  included  in  the  hotel  prices.  They  are  wrong, 
inasmuch  as  the  hundreds  of  little  special  attentions 
which  they  get  are  well  worth,  not  a  pourboire  but  a 
gratification.  The  pourboire  is  humiliating,  as  it  is 
in  a  way  obligatory,  but  a  gratification  is  a  free  thing, 
and  it  honours  the  person  who  gives  it  and  the  one  who 
receives  it.  There  are  a  quantity  of  words  which,  like 
this  one,  ought  to  be  changed  in  our  times.  A  wealthy 


378    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

American  business  man  said  to  me  one  day :  "  I  con- 
sider that  the  money  I  spend  in  pourboires  is  the  money 
that  brings  me  back  the  most."  His  practical  mind  had 
discovered  that.  There  is  an  innate  pride  among  the 
humbler  classes  which  makes  them  want  to  recognise 
what  one  does  for  them.  They  are  never  behindhand 
with  us,  and  what  they  give  us  back  is  always  more 
than  we  gave  them.  I  have  often  noticed  the  special 
care  with  which  porters  handle  the  trunks  and  bags  of 
those  who  have  treated  them  justly.  Generally,  and 
this  is  not  a  very  agreeable  thing  to  have  to  own,  women 
are  not  as  generous  as  men.  Foreign  women,  for  in- 
stance, who  are  visiting  Paris,  buy  more  than  they  had 
intended  to  buy.  When  they  have  used  their  letter  of 
credit  up  and  are  going  away,  they  will  economise  on 
the  tips.  I  knew  a  Sicilian  woman  of  good  social  posi- 
tion. She  was  not  wealthy  and,  on  arriving  at  the 
hotel,  she  used  to  put  aside  the  money  she  should  need 
for  the  servants,  so  that  her  purchases  should  not  oblige 
her  to  restrict  her  generosity.  That  was  a  true  senti- 
ment of  justice.  Money  alone  is  not  sufficient  for  win- 
ning the  esteem  and  respect  of  the  humble.  They  feel, 
by  intuition,  which  persons  are  interested  in  them  and 
they  are  grateful  for  this  interest.  Unfortunately,  I 
cannot  distribute  gratifications  to  those  who  wait  on 
me,  as  though  I  were  a  millionaire,  and  yet  I  have  al- 
ways been  waited  on  as  though  I  were  a  millionaire. 

In  a  hotel  where  I  stayed  for  a  long  time,  one  of  the 
porters  was  a  veritable  human  masterpiece,  a  comic 
masterpiece.  He  was  a  natural  clown.  He  had  a  shock 
of  hair,  jerky  movements  and  the  bewildered  expression 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  379 

of  that  amusing  type  of  individual.  He  had  the  same 
way  of  rushing  at  things,  but  with  the  difference  that 
he  did  not  only  appear  to  be  at  work,  for  the  work  he 
was  doing  seemed  to  slip  through  his  powerful  hands 
ready  done.  Besides  all  this,  he  was  a  born  humorist. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  had  a  fortune  in  his  roughly 
built  figure.  His  fellow  servants  saw  what  his  true 
vocation  was  and  they  all  called  him  "  Chocolat,"  after 
that  negro  clown  of  the  Nouveau  Cirque,  who  was  the 
joy  of  Parisian  children.  He  had  been  brought  up, 
after  the  death  of  his  father  and  mother,  by  a  Beauce 
farmer.  He  had  first  had  charge  of  the  turkeys  and 
then  of  the  sheep.  The  bewilderment  of  this  herdsman, 
on  arriving  in  a  first-class  Parisian  hotel,  can  be  imag- 
ined. He  was  at  once  a  living  target  for  all  the  would- 
be  jokers,  but  his  quick,  droll  replies  and  his  heavy  fists 
soon  won  for  him  a  certain  resp'ect,  and  Gustave-Choc- 
olat  became  an  important  person  on  the  hotel  staff. 

One  morning,  on  my  way  downstairs,  I  heard  the 
hotel  proprietor  blaming  him  severely  for  work  that  had 
been  badly  done.  Holding  his  duster  in  his  hand,  he 
watched  her  move  away  when  she  had  finished  speaking. 
He  then  turned  to  a  chamber-maid,  who  happened  to  be 
there,  and,  pointing  to  their  mistress  with  a  movement 
of  his  chin,  he  remarked  slily :  "  What  is  the  matter 
with  her?  If  she  isn't  satisfied,  let  her  leave!  I'm  all 
right  here,  and  I'm  going  to  stop ! "  He  thereupon 
began  to  polish  the  balustrade.  His  utter  buffoonery 
made  me  laugh  till  the  tears  came.  A  few  days  later, 
from  the  bathroom,  I  heard  him  talking  as  he  was  sweep- 
ing the  landing  energetically.  "  Rich  people !  I'm 


380     THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

sorry  for  them !  "  he  remarked ;  "  they  are  always  in  bed. 
I  have  to  swallow  their  microbes  and  they  are  the  ones 
to  be  ill ! "  With  a  little  culture,  he  would,  perhaps, 
have  been  a  great  humorist.  I  used  to  like  getting  him 
to  talk.  Behind  his  headstrong  forehead,  all  barred 
as  it  was  with  those  wrinkles  of  childhood  caused  by 
early  suffering,  I  discovered  the  most  unexpected 
capabilities  and,  among  others,  a  special  gift  for  un- 
derstanding everything  mechanical.  Whilst  minding 
his  sheep  he  had  studied  the  working  of  an  old  watch, 
his  sole  inheritance,  and  he  had  succeeded  in  understand- 
ing it.  He  used  to  say,  proudly :  "  If  a  watch  does 
not  go,  I  know  what  is  the  matter  with  it,  and,  if  only 
I  had  the  necessary  tools,  I  could  soon  mend  it ! "  His 
love  of  clock-work  had  been  fatal  to  some  of  the  hotel 
clocks  and  to  the  alarums  of  his  fellow-servants.  I  also 
discovered  that  he  had  an  innate  love  of  "  patriotic  " 
novels.  He  bought  as  many  as  he  could  and  he  used 
to  devour  them  when  on  night  duty.  He  told  me  that, 
on  account  of  his  short  stature,  he  had  not  been  ac- 
cepted for  military  service. 

"  Why  should  they  care  a  straw  about  my  height?  " 
he  added,  polishing  up  my  window  furiously.  "  There 
are  plenty  of  chicken-hearted  chaps  of  six  foot.  I  could 
give  a  jacketing  to  any  one."  He  then  tossed  his  head 
in  his  clown-like  way  and  remarked :  **  They'll  per- 
haps be  glad  to  get  me  some  day  !  " 

Our  poor  Chocolat  confided  in  me,  and  several  times 
I  could  see  the  grudge  he  bore  those  who  blamed  him 
unjustly. 

"  They're  stupid,  the  bosses!  "  he  remarked.     "  They 


381 

take  all  the  use  out  of  your  arms  and  legs  with  their 
jawing.  A  few  pleasant  words  give  you  courage. 
They  are  oats  that  don't  cost  much !  " 

Our  concierge  knew  how  interested  I  was  in  this  man 
and  one  day  he  told  me  that,  on  opening  the  big  gates, 
that  morning,  Chocolat  had  seen  a  poor,  half-dressed 
individual  stamping  his  feet  to  get  warm  under  the 
arcades.  He  promptly  gave  him  a  few  coppers  and 
told  him  to  wait.  He  then  rushed  up  to  his  room  on 
the  sixth  floor,  brought  down  a  flannel  shirt  and  insisted 
on  the  other  putting  it  on  there  and  then.  I  could 
quite  well  imagine  the  rough  way  in  which  he  had  given 
his  orders.  I  was  very  much  touched  and,  with  my 
damnable  curiosity,  I  wanted  to  know  what  had  been  in 
Chocolat's  mind  at  the  time  and  what  sentiments  he 
had  obeyed.  After  luncheon,  I  went  up  to  my  room 
rather  earlier  than  was  my  custom  and  found  him 
kneeling,  in  front  of  the  grate,  polishing  the  fender. 
I  congratulated  him  on  his  kindly  deed  of  that  morn- 
ing. He  turned  very  red  and  shrugged  his  left  shoul- 
der, as  though  in  excuse. 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  "  but  folks  have  no  right  to  upset 
you  by  showing  their  hide  like  that  in  January,  espe- 
cially when  there  are  shops  near  like  the  one  by  us ! " 

The  shop  by  us  was  that  of  a  noted  shirt-maker! 
Oh,  Chocolat,  what  humour  and  humour  of  the  best 
kind!  He  then  continued  in  a  surly  tone,  and  with  a 
curious  expression  of  bitterness: 

"  I'd  got  three  flannel  shirts  and  that  chap  hadn't 
one!  Is  that  just  and  is  it  common  sense?  There's 
folks  that  say  we  are  all  brothers,  but  they  don't  think 


382    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

so  at  all.  All  that's  the  flummery  of  priests,  members 
of  Parliament  and  socialists,  so  that  they  shall  get  a 
leg  up.  When  they've  climbed  on  to  the  wall,  though, 
they  don't  know  you  any  longer,  they're  not  even  cous- 
ins then.  It's  only  simpletons  that  get  taken  in  by 
them.  They  don't  catch  this  bird  with  that  chaff. 
Brothers !  Oh,  yes ! "  continued  Gustave,  with  his 
amusing  jerk  of  the  head,  "  if  I  went  and  told  the  good 
lady  here  that  I  was  her  brother  and  that  she  was  my 
sister,  wouldn't  she  swing  me  round ! " 

I  promptly  imagined  the  scene  that  such  a  declara- 
tion would  cause,  and  I  had  the  greatest  difficulty  to 
maintain  my  gravity.  "  All  the  same  our  fraternity 
is  very  real,"  I  observed,  "  for  we  are  all  the  creatures 
of  the  same  Creator,  the  children  of  God.  Those  who 
reflect  at  all,  or  who  are  very  good,  feel  this  perfectly 
well.  Did  you  not  tell  me  that  the  sight  of  this  poor 
vagabond,  without  a  shirt  to  his  back,  upset  you  this 
morning?  " 

"  Yes,  it  did,  it  made  my  teeth  chatter." 

"  You  see,  if  you  had  not  been  brothers,  of  the  same 
flesh,  his  nakedness  would  not  have  troubled  you." 

"  P'r'aps  not." 

"  You  could  not  eat  your  dinner  side  by  side  with  a 
fellow-creature  whom  you  knew  to  be  starving,  could 
you?" 

"  Oh,  no,  but  there  are  plenty  of  folks  that  the  world 
leaves  to  die  of  starvation." 

"  It  does  not  know  of  their  poverty,  no  doubt,  for 
mutual  aid  is  not  well  organised." 

"If  all   men  are   brothers,   why  do   they  eat   each 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  383 

other's  noses  off,  why  do  they  rob  and  kill  each  other?  " 

"  Because  they  were  created,  for  the  sake  of  the 
struggle,  all  of  them  different  from  each  other.  Some 
of  them  are  intelligent,  others  stupid ;  some  of  them  are 
good,  others  bad;  some  are  born  to  command,  others 
to  obey;  and  all  this  makes  enemies  of  brothers." 

"  And  is  that  just?  " 

"  I  think  it  is,  because  '  it  requires  all  sorts  of  people 
to  make  the  world,'  as  the  saying  is.  Then,  too,  we 
are  all  necessary,  the  most  humble  as  well  as  the  great- 
est." 

"  Even  those  that  are  good  for  nothing? "  asked 
Gustave,  looking  me  full  in  the  face,  with  a  mocking, 
aggressive  expression  in  his  eyes. 

"  But,  my  good  fellow,  there  is  not  a  single  creature 
who  does  nothing.  The  infirm  and  even  those  who  are 
really  ill  are  all  doing  something.  In  order  to  get  some 
one  else  to  act,  we  have  to  do  something  ourselves.  One 
movement  brings  about  another  movement.  A  mech- 
anician like  you  must  understand  that." 

"  Yes,  I  understand,  but  all  the  same  there  must  be 
something  wrong  somewhere,  for  there's  too  much 
wretched  poverty  and  Madame  does  not  know  p'r'aps  — " 

"  I  know,  oh,  yes,  I  know,"  I  interrupted  quickly. 
"  There  are  too  many  things  that  are  wrong  in  the 
world,  but,  with  God's  help,  they  are  gradually  being 
set  right.  He  is  at  work,  Himself,  in  bringing  about 
our  perfection.  In  the  meantime,  you  can  console  your- 
self with  the  thought  that  suffering  and  death  will  come 
to  all  of  us.  And  I  am  not  sure  that  the  humbler  class 
does  not  get  the  better  part  or,  at  any  rate,  the  easier 


$84 

part  in  this  life.  The  workman  has  only  the  worry  of 
earning  the  daily  bread.  His  master  has  the  respon- 
sibility of  meeting  all  his  engagements,  and  if  he  cannot 
do  this,  he  is  dishonoured.  You  hear  nothing  of  the 
sufferings  of  the  rich,  and  they  are  sometimes  so  great 
that  money  is  of  no  use.  There  are  more  suicides  among 
rich  people  than  among  the  poor.  Emperors,  Kings, 
Presidents,  and  those  at  the  head  of  things  generally, 
have  longer  and  more  arduous  days  than  you  do.  Those 
to  whom  you  listen  never  tell  you  all  this,  as  they  want 
to  turn  your  head  in  the  wrong  direction.  In  the  night 
refuges,  the  slumberers  snore,  and  in  many  soft  beds, 
slumber  never  comes.  You  have  seen  many  American 
millionaires  in  this  hotel.  Do  they  seem  to  you  much 
happier  than  you  are  yourself?" 

"  Lord,  no !  They  don't  seem  to  be  having  much  of 
a  spree.  I've  noticed  that." 

"  They  have  troubles  and  maladies  that  you  will 
never  know.  Ah,  you  may  be  sure  that  God's  scales 
are  equally  balanced.  .  .  ." 

"  Some  of  my  chums  say  that  there  is  no  God.  I  ask 
them  whether  it's  men  that  made  the  sun,  the  moon  and 
the  stars?  No,  that  was  God,  it's  as  clear  as  day- 
light." 

"  Yes,  God  is  the  great  clock-maker.  We  cannot  un- 
derstand the  movement  of  our  Earth ;  it  is  combined  with 
the  movements  of  millions  of  stars  and  they  all  have 
to  keep  time  together." 

"  Yes,  that's  quite  possible,"  assented  our  "  Choc- 
olat,"  in  a  knowing  way.  "  Does  Madame  believe  that 
there  will  be  another  world,  as  the  priests  tell  us  ?  " 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  385 

"  Certainly  I  do  and  you  will  be  a  great  mechanician 
there,  perhaps,"  I  answered. 

"With  plenty  of  tools?" 

"  With  all  the  tools  you  need." 

"  That  would  be  proper !  I  was  afraid  that  we  should 
just  twirl  our  thumbs  when  we  were  once  in  Paradise." 

"  Oh,  no,  we  shall  go  on  working,  as  we  must  always 
be  learning  something." 

"  Oh,  well,  that  will  suit  me,"  observed  the  good  fel- 
low, getting  up. 

"  And  in  the  meantime,  your  polishing  has  made  my 
room  look  more  cheerful,"  I  remarked ;  "  my  fender 
shines  like  gold." 

"  Yes,  it  looks  very  well,"  agreed  Chocolat,  giving 
it  a  final  rub  with  his  white  apron. 

Although  this  conversation  took  place  more  than  ten 
years  ago,  I  have  been  able  to  write  it  down  exactly. 
It  had  remained  in  my  memory,  as  it  was  very  char- 
acteristic and  was  to  serve,  when  I  needed  it. 

Strangely  enough,  Chocolat's  first  love-affair  was  a 
farce,  and  I  cannot  resist  telling  about  it.  On  arriv- 
ing from  his  native  Beauce,  which,  according  to  him, 
was  the  most  beautiful  province  of  France,  he  had  some 
very  dirty  habits  of  primitive  coarseness.  It  was  not 
long,  though,  before  he  began  to  feel  the  influence  of  his 
more  civilised  surroundings.  Cleanliness  must  have  been 
quite  a  revelation  to  him,  I  am  sure.  In  a  very  short 
time,  he  looked  like  another  man.  When  his  rough  work 
was  done,  he  would  wash  and  I  expect  he  curry-combed 
himself  very  energetically.  He  would  then  comb  his  thick, 
stubbly  hair,  change  his  clothes  and  put  on  clean  linen. 


386  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

Feeling  considerably  improved  in  appearance  after  this 
free  use  of  soap  and  water,  he  would  then  stand  on 
the  doorstep,  stroking  and  twirling  his  budding  mous- 
tache and  taking  in  a  quantity  of  instantaneous  photo- 
graphs with  his  little,  keen  eyes.  He  was  not  long  in 
discovering  one  of  the  prettiest  housemaids  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood. Unfortunately  for  himself,  he  expressed  his 
admiration  aloud,  and  this  gave  his  fellow-servants  the 
idea  of  playing  a  good  joke  on  him.  One  of  them  told 
him  that  the  girl  had  noticed  him  and  that  she  liked  his 
looks.  He  took  this  seriously,  as  he  was  extremely 
vain,  and  he  now  began  to  strut  about  finely.  He  re- 
ceived letters,  written  in  very  friendly  terms,  and  very 
soon  the  most  loving  epistles  signed  Louise.  She  told 
her  admirer  that  he  must  neither  speak  to  her,  nor  look 
at  her,  when  she  was  walking  under  the  arcades,  as  it 
would  not  do  for  her  to  be  compromised  by  him.  These 
wretched  practical  jokers  carried  out  their  plan  so  well 
that  the  poor  fellow  was  soon  wildly  in  love.  He  paid 
more  and  more  attention  to  his  toilette,  bought  startling 
neckties  and  used  scented  soap.  When  he  was  joked 
about  all  this,  he  would  reply,  with  his  comic  wink  and 
a  conceited  smile :  "  Young  men  will  be  young  men !  " 
Finally,  the  pseudo-Louise  appointed  a  meeting,  under 
the  arches  of  the  Madeleine  Church,  between  twelve  and 
one  in  the  afternoon.  At  the  appointed  time,  which  was 
his  luncheon  hour,  he  was  there,  looking  very  spick  and 
span,  awaiting  his  beloved.  Alas,  she  never  came.  I 
expect  he  was  cruelly  disappointed.  That  evening,  his 
tormentors  sent  him  a  note  to  comfort  him,  in  which 
another  meeting  was  arranged.  This  comedy  was  kept 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  387 

up  for  a  fortnight.  And  the  victim  lost  his  appetite 
completely.  Finally,  some  one  told  the  maid  in  ques- 
tion of  the  liberty  that  was  being  taken  with  her  name. 
She  was  indignant,  but  at  the  same  time  flattered  by 
the  sentiment  she  had  inspired.  She  at  once  wrote  to 
her  admirer,  in  order  to  undeceive  him.  Chocolat  told 
me  about  the  abominable  trick  that  had  been  played  on 
him  and  gave  me  this  letter  to  read.  I  copied  it  and 
kept  it  as  a  document  of  human  kindness  and  delicacy. 
It  ran  thus : 

"  MONSIEUR  GUSTAVE, 

"  I  have  never  sent  you  a  letter  of  any  kind.  A 
trick  has  been  played  upon  you,  but  I  have  had 
nothing  to  do  with  it.  I  am  going  to  be  married 
to  a  young  man  near  my  own  home,  so  that  my 
heart  is  no  longer  free.  If  this  were  not  so,  I 
should  have  liked  you  as  you  are  so  upright  and 
straightforward.  There  is  nothing  left  but  to 
despise  those  who  tried  to  make  fun  of  you  in  such 
a  stupid  way.  They  are  imbeciles  and  good-for- 
nothings. 

"  LOUISE." 

"Madame  has  read  it?"  said  Monsieur  Gustave, 
when  I  returned  him  the  letter.  "  If  she  had  been  free, 
she  would  have  liked  me  and  she  says  that  those  who 
imagined  this  take-in  are  imbeciles  and  good-for-noth- 
ings. .  .  .  Imbeciles,"  he  repeated,  in  delight,  tapping 
the  sheet  of  paper  with  the  back  of  his  hand ;  "  that's 
written  there." 


388     THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

I  admired  the  feminine  intuition  of  this  humble  girl. 
She  had  found  the  words  that  were  needed  for  healing 
the  wounded  love  and  self-respect  of  her  adorer  and, 
at  the  same  time,  she  had  given  him  a  weapon  for  her 
own  revenge.  Without  this  letter,  Chocolat  would 
probably  have  used  his  fists  on  his  tormentors  and,  as 
it  was,  he  contented  himself  with  showing  the  letter  to 
every  one  of  them. 

During  the  summer  season,  Gustave  gave  notice  and 
left  the  hotel,  "  in  order  to  go  and  see  the  world,"  as 
he  said  himself.  On  my  return  for  the  winter,  he  was 
no  longer  there  and  I  was  very  sorry.  I  never  saw  him 
again  but,  on  Shrove  Tuesday  of  two  consecutive  years 
we  had  a  most  persistent  horn  player  under  the  arcades 
of  the  Rue  de  Castiglione.  It  was  no  other  than  our 
ex-porter  giving  us  this  serenade.  How  and  where 
could  he  have  learned  to  play  the  hunting-horn?  This 
fresh  talent  would  have  made  of  him  an  accomplished 
clown. 

And  so  I  had  to  go  to  Vevey  in  search  of  this  chap- 
ter! Such  as  it  is,  it  has  given  me  great  pleasure  to 
write  it  and  it  seems  to  me  that  I  have  paid  a  debt. 

When  we  first  begin  to  think  of  it,  we  are  surprised 
that  Christianism  should  not  have  developed  the  senti- 
ment of  human  fraternity  more  than  it  has  done,  but 
when  we  look  at  its  work  more  closely,  we  see  that  this 
has  never  been  real  for  Christians.  It  is  of  no  use 
protesting,  as  this  is  quite  true.  It  preached  human 
fraternity  after  the  manner  of  Balaam's  ass.  It  dis- 
dained Nature,  it  ignored  everything  in  the  divine  book, 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  389 

in  which  fraternity  is  written  in  living  letters.  Christ 
had  seen  it  in  his  long  meditations  and,  by  the  words 
"  Our  Father,"  he  wanted  to  reveal  it  to  the  world,  but 
the  world  was  not  ready  to  hear  it.  For  the  apostles 
and  their  successors,  it  was  only  an  ideal,  a  mystical 
dream,  and  we  ought  to  be  grateful  to  them  for  having 
dreamed  and  lived  it  until  it  could  be  better  understood. 

Charity  of  old,  both  with  Pagans  and  Christians, 
exalted  those  who  gave  it,  but  humiliated  and  dishon- 
oured those  who  received  it.  It  was  an  instrument  of 
power,  of  tyranny  even,  a  means  of  arriving,  of  winning 
terrestrial  and  celestial  honours.  The  sentiment  of  our 
fraternity  will  not  come  from  Christian  pulpits,  but 
from  Science,  from  the  chemical  laboratories,  from 
Natural  History,  from  Philosophy.  It  will  be  one  of 
the  fruits  of  the  evolution  which  has  commenced.  And 
then,  when  we  have  become  aware  of  our  near  relation- 
ship, the  mutuality  which  will  protect  the  workman  from 
need,  which  will  confer  true  liberty  on  him,  the  arbitrage 
which  is  to  help  him,  will  be  organised  to  every  one's 
satisfaction.  The  uprooted,  the  vanquished  ones  of 
Life  will  then  be  able  to  accept  the  help  of  the  com- 
munity without  any  shame,  and  those  individuals  who 
are  really  good,  and  really  humane,  will  spare  the  feet 
that  walk  for  them  and  the  hands  that  serve  them. 

In  order  to  rise,  the  aeroplane  has  to  run  along  the 
ground  for  yards  and  yards.  For  millions  of  years, 
humanity  has  been  running  along  level  with  the  earth, 
in  order  to  rise  and  to  start  in  the  direction  of  justice 
and  of  love.  Fraternity  alone  can  help  it  to  get  there. 


390    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

We  arc  always  told  to  "  Look  above."  I  would  say, 
"  Look  down  below,  deeper  and  ever  deeper  down,  for 
the  secrets  of  God,  like  all  precious  things,  must  be 
buried  very  deep  down." 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE  Autumn  sunsets  on  this  part  of  Leman,  which  is 
known  as  the  Large  Lake,  have  a  special  beauty  of  their 
own.  Yesterday's  sunset  made  an  impression  on  me 
which  I  hope  will  not  be  effaced  for  a  long  time. 
Against  a  remarkably  clear  sky,  the  outlines  of  the 
peaked  or  rounded  summits  of  the  Alps  were  very  dis- 
tinct. The  chain,  with  its  marquetry  of  snow,  was  of 
such  a  pure  blue  that  it  looked  like  solidified  azure. 
And  over  this  whiteness  and  over  this  azure,  the  light 
of  the  setting  sun  threw  its  rays  with  an  art  that  was 
truly  divine.  It  then  created  a  golden  background, 
upon  which  Venus  appeared  with  its  diamond-like  bril- 
liancy. A  few  minutes  later  Mars  was  visible  in  the 
east,  as  red  as  a  ruby.  Between  these  two  living  jewels, 
the  faint  crescent  of  a  new  moon  stood  out  against  the 
sky.  The  three  stars  remained  alone  in  the  twilight 
silence.  "  The  honeymoon  of  Venus  and  Mars,"  I  said 
to  myself  irreverently.  A  second  glance  gave  me  a 
kind  of  religious  emotion.  I  can  never  look  long  at  the 
starry  firmament.  Its  unfathomable  immensity  and  its 
mystery  make  a  thrill  of  awe  run  down  my  back,  atom 
as  I  am.  A  few  minutes  later,  I  took  my  place  at  my 
writing-table  again  and  my  eyes,  still  filled  with  the 
grandeur  of  the  world  above,  fell  on  the  little  globe 
which  was  on  my  table.  The  Earth !  It  seems  incredi- 
ble, but  for  the  first  time  in  my  life,  it  occurred  to  me 

that  not  only  was  it  a  planet  like  those  that  were  shin- 

391 


392     THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

ing  in  front  of  me,  but  that  its  route  was  traced  be- 
tween these  two,  that  it  appeared  every  evening,  like 
them,  above  some  horizon,  and  that  every  evening  it  put 
a  golden  nail  in  the  firmament.  I  had  learnt  this  fact 
and  it  seems  to  me  that  I  had  always  known  it,  but  I 
had  never  really  conceived  this  before.  To  conceive  a 
thing  means  that  something  fresh  is  formed  within  us 
and,  according  to  the  thing  conceived,  the  sensation  is 
exquisite  or  painful.  I  saw  the  Terrestrians,  feet 
against  feet,  kept  in  equilibrium  thus  on  the  surface  of 
a  solid  globe  which  keeps  turning  round  on  itself,  in  the 
fluid,  transparent  ether,  at  the  rate  of  1600  an  hour. 
I  saw  myself  in  the  cage  where  I  do  not  sing,  alas,  but 
where  I  think,  and  I  saw  myself  with  all  my  little  exer- 
cise books  rolling  among  the  stars.  This  amusing 
vision  seemed  to  me  grandly  comic.  Then  I  turned  my 
little  globe  slowly  round.  Was  this  then  how  man 
imagined  the  planet  to  be  on  which  he  had  grown?  A 
sphere,  just  a  little  flat  towards  the  poles,  swelling  out 
at  its  equator,  on  which  longitudinal  and  horizontal 
lines  are  traced,  imaginary  lines  which  serve  us  as 
land  marks.  The  pale  green  background  indicates  the 
liquid  part,  the  Ocean.  The  solid  part,  or  the  Earth, 
is  cut  up  strangely  and  very  irregularly,  ending  in 
points  at  unequal  distances.  It  then  begins  again  form- 
ing veritable  strings  of  islands.  This  solid  part  is  di- 
vided into  numberless  pieces,  outlined  with  red,  yellow, 
mauve  and  green.  Each  of  these  pieces  bears  the  name 
of  the  nation  to  whom  it  belongs.  An  infinite  number 
of  lines  seems  to  bind  these  various  countries  together. 
Some  of  these  lines  indicate  the  net-work  of  railroads 


393 

and  others  the  various  routes  of  the  boats,  and  still 
others  those  of  the  cables  which  transmit  invisible  human 
thought.  Then  the  arrows,  scattered  in  every  direc- 
tion, mark  the  currents  of  the  atmosphere  and  of  the 
Ocean. 

And  this  is  how,  after  millions  of  years  of  existence, 
and  of  perpetual  efforts,  mankind  has  come  to  know  and 
to  see  his  place  of  habitation.  He  has  made  out  the 
lines  of  the  mountain  chains,  of  the  flow  of  rivers  and 
the  outlines  that  the  sea  has  formed.  This  is  very  much 
and  it  is  nothing.  It  is  much,  because,  in  the  im- 
mensity of  his  domain,  he  can  no  longer  get  lost.  It 
is  nothing,  because  he  only  knows  the  surface  or  the 
body,  as  it  were,  of  the  Earth.  He  knows  nothing  of 
its  soul,  of  that  soul  which  aliments  his  own,  and  with 
which  he  is  ever  collaborating.  He  knows  almost  noth- 
ing of  the  immaterial  forces  which  he  is  obeying,  of  the 
psychical  zones  in  the  midst  of  which  he  is  moving,  of 
the  currents  transmitted  to  him  by  the  orders  of  the 
gods,  of  the  fluid  ideas,  pictures,  sentiments,  which  unite 
him  to  other  beings  and  which  make  his  destiny.  Oh, 
how  much  there  is  that  the  Terrestrian  does  not  yet 
know! 

With  a  finger  that  seemed  to  see,  I  once  more  turned 
my  little  globe  round.  It  appeared  to  me  all  at  once 
like  a  chess-board  with  many  coloured  squares.  And 
is  our  planet  not  that?  Yes,  it  is  in  truth  a  chess- 
board, on  which  the  gods  are  playing  the  eternal  game 
of  Life.  They  are  playing  this  game  with  man,  and 
for  man,  on  the  chess-board  which  they  made  very 
slowly,  which  they  have  altered  during  long  centuries 


394    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

and  which  they  will  alter  again  up  to  the  last ;  a  chess- 
board on  which  every  square  contains  a  world  of  won- 
ders, and  of  which  every  square  is  a  battle-field.  I 
know  too  little  history  to  be  able  to  follow  the  terrifying 
game  closely,  but  I  know  enough  to  enable  me  to  grasp 
what  the  aim  and  object  of  it  all  is,  and  this  aim  and 
object  is  nothing  but  the  evolution  and  progress  of  man- 
kind. We  must  have  the  courage  to  write  that  this 
evolution  commenced,  and  has  continued,  by  means  of 
robbery  and  murder.  Was  it  for  the  sake  of  a  handful 
of  lentils,  an  apple,  or  a  woman  that  the  far-off  an- 
cestor was  guilty  of  fratricide?  That  matters  little. 
He  killed  his  brother  and  that  gesture  of  doing  away 
with  the  weaker  one  has  been  repeated  through  the 
ages,  with  the  implacability  of  a  primordial  and  neces- 
sary law.  It  goes  on  repeating  itself.  In  our  twenti- 
eth century,  people  still  rob  each  other,  but  in  a  more 
artistic  way.  People  are  always  massacring  each 
other  in  some  part  of  the  globe,  but  in  a  more  scientific 
manner  than  formerly.  The  result  is  the  same,  though. 
Thanks  to  the  inspiration  of  the  gods,  we  have  manu- 
factured the  most  wonderful  engines  of  warfare.  One 
of  these  days,  they  will  want  to  see  how  these  things 
work  and  we  know  what  that  means.  If  we  are  not  to 
be  staggered  by  this  terrifying  reality,  we  must  be  able 
to  listen  to  what  Nature  cries  out  to  us  with  all  her 
voices.  She  tells  us  that  she  is  a  great  transformer 
and  that  her  work  is  Life's  work.  In  that  immortal 
struggle  to  which  humanity  seems  to  be  doomed,  mate- 
rial forces  only  serve  psychical  forces.  In  reality,  the 
real  combat  is  between  passions,  sentiments  and  ideas ; 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  395 

between  those  formidable  Invisibles  lodged  in  certain 
cellules  of  our  brain,  for  which  other  cellules  have  to 
furnish  the  weapons  of  attack  and  defence.  From  the 
flint  hatchet  to  the  elegant  and  well-tempered  sword  of 
the  Fronde  and  to  the  Lebel  gun;  from  the  wretched 
little  boat  to  the  Dreadnought,  there  is  a  ladder  which 
will  serve  for  the  history  of  our  mentality.  And  on 
this  terrestrial  chess-board,  the  gods  have  moved 
pawns,  knights,  kings,  queens,  castles  and  bishops  about 
and  have  pushed  them  backwards  and  forwards  in  a 
thousand  strange  and  incomprehensible  ways.  Each  of 
these  moves  has  produced  frightful  hecatombs  and 
waves  and  waves  of  human  and  animal  suffering.  Each 
of  these  moves  has  caused  the  destruction  of  the  Ter- 
restrians'  dwellings,  temples  and  edifices,  built  at  the 
cost  of  enormous  labour.  Each  of  these  moves,  too, 
has  caused  the  dispersion  of  treasures  which  had  taken 
ages  to  collect.  Whilst  war  and  disease  raged  on  cer- 
tain of  the  squares,  new  life  was  born  and  developed 
on  others.  The  gods  put  light  here  and  shade  there 
and  then  they  made  shade  of  light  and  light  of  shade. 
In  far-off  times,  India,  China,  Persia  and  Asia  shone 
with  a  brilliancy  that  has  never  been  surpassed. 
Egypt,  Greece,  Carthage,  Rome  have  all  been  beacons 
in  their  turn.  It  was,  although  they  did  not  know  it, 
in  order  to  win  for  themselves  this  divine  light  that  the 
nations  were  all  moving  onwards.  I  fancy  I  see  the 
endless  files  of  warriors,  accompanied  by  women,  chil- 
dren, slaves  and  flocks,  crossing  the  mountain  chains,  the 
rivers,  marshes,  deserts,  with  just  what  belonged  to 
them,  and  with  none  of  the  material  forces  to  help  them! 


396    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

that  we  have  in  our  times.  When  I  think  of  the  weak 
who  must  have  fallen  on  the  way,  of  the  conquered  who 
have  been  killed,  mutilated  or  taken  into  captivity,  my 
heart  swells  with  pity  and  with  anger.  Are  the  Powers 
who  govern  us  cruel  then?  No.  They  are,  no  doubt, 
obeying  higher  and  inevitable  laws  themselves,  and  their 
progress  means  ours  too.  And  this  progress  is  im- 
mense, in  spite  of  what  those  people  say  who  have  eyes 
which  do  not  see.  In  the  first  centuries  of  our  era,  the 
ancestors  of  the  Germans  of  to-day,  were  handsome  bar- 
barians who  dyed  their  bodies  blue.  There  were  canni- 
bals in  Scotland,  whilst  in  the  forests  of  France,  human 
blood  flowed  in  sacrifice  on  the  stone  altars.  At  pres- 
ent, Europe  and  America  possess  the  light.  Will  it 
return  to  the  East?  It  is  quite  possible,  for  there  are 
glimmers  of  dawn  there. 

All  these  thoughts  had  made  my  little  globe  seem 
very  living  to  me,  in  the  most  curious  way,  and  I  turned 
it  gently  round.  Poor  Earth !  We  do  not  love  it  as 
we  should,  as  we  only  know  vaguely  the  history  of  its 
titanic  epopee.  When  will  some  one  come  who  will 
know  how  to  read  it  objectively,  as  a  "  Divine  manu- 
script," and  who  will  be  able  to  explain  it  to  us  clearly 
and  simply,  so  that  both  the  humble  and  the  great  may 
be  interested  in  it?  There  is  no  science  so  little  under- 
stood and  so  stupidly  taught  as  history  —  our  history. 
We  compel  brains  of  ten  years  old,  milky  brains,  as  it 
were,  to  absorb  the  past  grandeur  of  Egypt,  of  a  coun- 
try which  they  cannot  imagine  and  cannot  even  place. 
We  compel  them  to  remember  the  barbarous  names  of 
its  kings  and  dynasties,  at  an  age  when  they  cannot 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  397 

even  understand  what  a  dynasty  is.  Geography  is 
taught  to  them  from  a  flat  map,  and  they  do  not  even 
see  the  real  shape  of  our  planet.  In  France,  the  chil- 
dren of  the  elementary  schools  begin  their  history  with 
the  third  Republic.  There  was  nothing  before  this,  it 
appears,  and  there  can  be  nothing  after  it.  At  the 
Nanterre  school  examinations,  last  summer,  some  little 
girls  of  fourteen  were  questioned  on  the  history  of  uni- 
versal suffrage !  The  miracle  is  that,  out  of  twelve,  two 
knew  something  about  it.  They  were  the  daughters 
of  Republicans  evidently.  And  people  are  surprised 
at  our  depopulation.  We  are  taught  history  when  we 
are  unable  to  understand  it,  and  when  we  could  under- 
stand, we  do  not  open  our  books  again,  thanks  to  our 
former  dislike  of  it.  Our  ignorance  prevents  us  from 
judging  either  the  past  or  the  present  in  a  sound  man- 
ner. We  content  ourselves  with  knowing  the  names  of 
the  great  victors  and  of  the  celebrated  vanquished  ones, 
but  we  do  not  even  see  that  their  victories  and  their 
defeats  still  affect  us.  If  my  globe  now  tells  me  some- 
thing immense  and  wonderful,  it  is  thanks  to  some  read- 
ing I  have  done,  reading  which  has  had  its  influence  on 
this  volume,  and  which,  in  spite  of  my  will,  was  to  guide 
my  barque,  "  The  Why,"  once  more  towards  Rome. 
"  All  roads  lead  to  Rome  "  is  the  saying,  and  all  far- 
reaching  thought  leads  there  too. 

Among  the  phenomena  which  go  to  make  up  our 
existences,  there  is  one  which  always  astonishes  me. 
For  months  and  years,  we  may  look  at  a  name,  an  ob- 
ject or  a  person  without  really  seeing  them.  There 
then  comes  a  moment  when  we  are  struck  by  this  name, 


398    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

this  object  or  this  person.  They  enter  into  our  life 
and  play  a  more  or  less  important  part  there.  This  is 
no  hap-hazard,  no  fatality,  but  a  Providential  contact. 
There  is  a  certain  Hotel  Gibbon  in  Lausanne,  named 
thus  in  memory  of  the  great  English  writer  who  was 
one  of  the  guests  of  the  old  city.  I  saw  this  name 
nearly  every  day  and,  to  me,  it  meant  nothing  but  the 
hotel  sign.  One  afternoon,  it  suddenly  occurred  to  me 
that  Gibbon  was  the  author  of  "  The  History  of  the 
Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,"  and  that  re- 
minded me  of  a  characteristic  feature  of  an  epoch  that 
had  been  lived.  In  1869,  soon  after  arriving  in  Rome, 
I  had  asked  for  this  work  at  a  bookshop  on  the  Corso. 
I  was  told  by  the  bookseller,  in  a  loud  voice,  for  the 
edification  of  all  present,  I  suppose,  that  it  was  on  the 
Index  of  Prohibited  Books,  and  that  he  had  no  copies 
of  it.  Whilst  I  was  looking  at  the  titles  of  books  on 
the  shelves,  one  of  the  salesmen  came  up  to  me  and 
told  me  he  had  just  discovered  a  copy  of  the  work  for 
which  I  had  asked  and  that,  as  I  was  a  foreigner,  he 
could  let  me  have  it.  He  then  asked  me  so  exorbitant 
a  price  for  it  that  I  did  not  buy  it.  In  those  days  a 
sin  was  expensive  in  Rome,  at  present  it  costs  nothing. 
I  had  thought  no  more  either  of  Gibbon  or  his  history 
and  now,  after  so  many  years,  I  had  a  wish  to  read  it, 
a  spontaneous  wish  that  was  like  an  inspiration. 

I  read  this  history  and  it  took  me  a  whole  year.  It 
is  written  in  a  simple,  pleasant  style  and  is  full  of  light. 
I  have  already  confessed  my  frivolity.  It  is  such  that 
I  cannot  continue  reading  a  dry,  serious  writer,  who 
has  neither  warmth  nor  colour,  even  though  he  could 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  399 

tell  me  the  secrets  I  am  curious  to  know.  I  did  not 
skip  one  of  the  three  thousand  pages  which  are  the 
synthesis  of  fifteen  centuries.  This  synthesis  is  so  clear 
that  it  shows  up,  all  the  time,  Providential  work,  with- 
out ever  entangling  the  various  threads  of  the  weaving. 
And  I  admired,  as  a  novelist,  the  linking  together  of  the 
various  circumstances,  the  art  with  which  everything  is 
made  to  concur,  the  apparent  insignificance  of  the 
causes,  the  immensity  of  the  effects  and  the  intentional 
ironies.  But,  as  I  read  this  drama,  lived  by  us  in  mind 
and  body,  this  drama  which  has  engendered  so  much 
suffering,  I  was  frequently  rebellious  and  the  exclama- 
tions to  which  I  gave  vent  were  not  precisely  in  admir- 
ation of  the  gods.  From  time  to  time  I  thought  I  was 
coming  to  the  death  of  things  and  then  I  felt  other 
organisms  coming  to  life.  When  I  read  about  the  king- 
dom of  England,  for  instance,  and  then  about  the  king- 
dom of  France,  and  the  other  European  kingdoms,  I 
found  myself  face  to  face  with  evolution,  with  the  phe- 
nomenon of  eternal  life,  and  my  confidence  and  hope 
came  back  to  me. 

On  reading  the  "  History  of  the  Decline  and  Fall  of 
the  Roman  Empire  "  I  wondered,  in  bewilderment,  to 
what  Gibbon  owed  the  honour  of  having  his  work  on  the 
Index  of  Prohibited  Books?  It  was,  perhaps,  thanks 
to  the  crime  of  having  told  the  truth,  the  truth  which 
is  not  pleasant  to  know.  His  philosophy,  as  a  scholar 
and  a  gentleman,  seems  to  hover  above  all  questions  of 
party  and  of  religion.  When  he  has  to  tell  something 
which  is  not  favourable  to  Christianism  or  to  the  Church, 
he  does  this  with  evident  regret  and  he  gives  us  his 


400    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

proofs  from  the  doctors  of  the  same  Church,  and  never 
from  its  enemies.  Some  people  consider  this  very 
adroit.  I  think  it  was  straightforward.  I  fancy  that 
those  who  condemned  his  work  canonically  were  alarmed 
at  the  three  thousand  pages  and  did  not  read  it  through 
—  or  they  were  incapable  of  understanding  it. 

After  Gibbon,  I  always  used  to  read  my  New  York 
Herald  from  Paris.  When,  in  the  political  and  social 
notes  of  twentieth  century  Rome,  I  saw  accounts  of  a 
Parliamentary  meeting,  or  of  dinners  and  balls,  at  the 
Grand  Hotel  and  at  the  Excelsior,  in  which  names  re- 
appeared that  were  still  shining  out  in  my  mind,  as  those 
of  the  feudal  barons,  names  such  as  Colonna,  Orsini  or 
Caetani,  I  experienced  the  sensation  of  taking  a  re- 
freshing bath  on  coming  out  of  a  furnace.  And  the 
childish,  frivolous  wish  came  wickedly  into  my  mind 
that  I  might  see  modern  Romans  moving  about  among 
the  great  scenes  which  my  reading  had  made  so  real 
that  they  seemed  to  be  incredibly  near  to  me.  Three 
years  previously,  I  had  gone  back  to  Italy  after  a  quar- 
ter of  a  century's  absence.  My  voyage  had  caused  me 
a  whole  series  of  disappointments,  for  which  I  should 
formerly  have  held  Rome,  Florence  and  Venice  responsi- 
ble, but  which  were  merely  subjective  disappointments. 
Men  whom  I  had  known  there  at  the  age  of  twenty-five 
were  now  fifty,  and  when  I  saw  them  with  their  hair 
turning  grey,  it  gave  me  a  stab.  The  whole  of  the 
time  I  was  there,  I  felt  my  own  age  and  the  sensation 
was  abominable,  yes,  absolutely  abominable.  I  felt  that 
Italy  had  become  too  strong  an  accumulator  for  me; 
just  as  I  feel  that  Paris  is  too  rapid. 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  401 

The  beauty  contained  in  the  Museums  attracted  "  the 
Other  One "  irresistibly.  I  was  consequently  obliged 
to  mount  an  endless  number  of  stairs  when  "  I  myself  " 
was  protesting  all  the  time.  It  was  humiliating  to  be 
obliged  to  ask  the  care-takers  for  permission  to  keep 
my  sunshade  as  I  walked  through  the  rooms,  and  it  was 
only  the  sight  of  certain  masterpieces  that  calmed  me 
again.  One  day  in  Rome,  I  was  talking  to  one  of  my 
friends,  near  her  window,  when  my  eyes  fell  on  a  mask 
on  a  house  opposite.  Its  powerful  expression  struck 
me  and  interrupted  what  I  was  saying.  I  apologised 
and  added  with  some  annoyance :  "  It  is  most  tire- 
some that  one  can  never  talk  in  peace  here.  One  is 
always  interrupted  by  something  extraordinary ! " 
This  was  not  a  mere  whim.  I  really  felt  as  though  I 
were  being  pursued  by  beauty  and  it  gave  me  a  sort  of 
tired  anger. 

I  had,  as  I  believed,  bidden  a  last  farewell  to  Italy 
and,  without  my  being  aware  of  it,  the  book  I  had 
written,  the  reading  of  Gibbon,  and  every  chapter  of 
"  The  Wonderful  Romance  "  was  taking  me  unavoid- 
ably back  there.  Once  more  the  gods  are  saying  to  me : 
"  Start  off,  start  off,  poor  Terrestrian  with  the  tired 
feet ! "  Do  they  know  how  much  it  costs  me  only  to 
draw  out  the  staples  of  my  tent,  to  leave  my  light, 
cheerful  room  and  that  table  of  harmony,  Lake  Leman, 
to  leave  the  sparrows,  the  wrens  and  the  tomtits  which 
make  of  my  balcony  an  open  aviary?  Do  they  know 
it  ?  I  fancy  they  do,  for  their  will  comes  to  me  through 
some  very  dear  American  friends  who  beg  me  to  spend 
Christmas  with  them  in  Rome.  They  write  the  word 


402  THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

"  Come  "  in  enormous  letters.  That  written  word  has 
made  a  curious  impression  on  me.  I  will  go,  yes,  I  will 
go,  come  what  may !  It  is  perhaps  foolish.  I  am  three 
years  older ;  that  means  something  like  nine  campaigns, 
for  at  my  age  each  year  counts  triple.  Is  it  not  rather 
late  in  the  day  to  make  another  pilgrimage  to  the 
Eternal  City?  I  feel  how  thin  the  thread  of  my  life 
now  is.  It  seems  to  me,  at  times,  as  though  I  hear 
the  jeering  of  Destiny's  sinister  handmaiden,  for  she 
it  is  who  will  cut  the  thread, —  oh,  the  horrible  crea- 
ture! She  no  doubt  considers  that  she  has  been  very 
kind  in  delaying  so  long  a  time,  but  it  is  hard  to  leave 
Life  now  when  I  see  it  so  immense,  beautiful  with  an 
immortal  beauty!  Courage  will  come  to  me.  If  it  be 
at  Rome  that  I  am  to  succumb,  there  is  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  cemeteries  in  the  world  at  the  foot  of  the 
Aventine,  the  foreigners'  cemetery,  the  one  of  which 
Shelley  said :  "  It  makes  one  in  love  with  death."  The 
light,  softened  by  the  tall  cypress  trees,  is  extraordi- 
nary; it  seems  to  have  been  created  for  happy  disem- 
bodied souls,  and  those  who  are  at  rest  there  seem  to 
belong  to  the  same  world,  to  be  happy  together.  Am 
I  destined  to  sleep  in  such  peace?  Chi  lo  sal 

Well,  I  am  going  to  prepare  for  my  departure,  as 
though  it  were  to  be  the  final  journey.  I  shall  finish 
off  here  all  that  I  have  read  through  of  the  "  Won- 
derful Romance,"  so  that  it  may  not  be  wasted.  I 
should  like  to  be  able  to  take  it  on  to  Rome.  If  this 
should  not  be  allowed  me,  I  shall  not  have  said  all  that  I 
wanted  to  say,  but  I  shall  have  said  all  that  I  was  to 
say.  Others  who  know  more  and  are  more  capable  will 


THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE  403 

continue  this  reading.  I  shall  have  had  the  glory  of 
having  commenced  it.  That  is  enough  for  me.  The 
volume  will  be  a  small  one  in  the  book-shop;  if  to  some 
of  my  readers  it  should  appear  great,  that,  too,  is 
enough  for  me. 

PlEERE    DE    COULEVAIN. 


404    THE  WONDERFUL  ROMANCE 

LAUSANNE,  Hotel  Beausejour. 


She  did  not  go  to  Rome.  She  "  fell  from  the 
Branch  "  a  few  steps  away  from  the  spot  where  Edward 
Gibbon  finished  "  The  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman 
Empire,"  his  share  of  "  The  Wonderful  Romance." 
Her  express  wish  was  to  remain  unknown.  As  she  re- 
peated frequently ',  her  work  alone  belongs  to  criticism 
and  to  curiosity. 


THE    END 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY,  LOS  ANGELES 

COLLEGE  LIBRARY 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


Book  81ip-35m-7,'63(D8634»4)42»0 


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